The Evil That Men Do
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Immediate sequel to 'Shadow of the Wolf'. Malcolm and Hoshi have returned to Earth and some weeks have passed, but the fall-out from the events in the Expanse continues.
1. 1: Sato

**Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.**

 **This story has been beta-read by VesperRegina, to whom I owe thanks as always for her insight and invaluable advice.  
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 **This story is AU. Warning for occasional mild bad language.**

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Home at last.

Not that it was exactly 'home', I thought. Just the place I'd rented while I decided where my life was going to go from here. And I was glad to be here at last, considering I'd spent the last couple of months cooped up in a Starfleet medical center while they monitored the end of my pregnancy and the birth of my baby son – a precaution Phlox had insisted on, given the nature of the trauma I'd been through, though the room they gave me there was pleasant enough.

It was a really nice apartment, though Mother complained it was small. She finally admitted that it was clean, though, and well decorated, and the view of the sunlit Bay was wonderful. I even had a balcony, and while my mother went through the kitchen cabinets to find out what she'd need to buy in, I went out on it with my son.

"That's where your mama was a cadet," I said, pointing out the distant shape of Starfleet HQ while I held him slightly tilted up so it would be in his field of vision (not that I imagined for a moment he could see that far; he was too young yet to focus on anything at all). "Maybe you'll go there one day. Just like your mama and your daddy. Maybe you'll end up on a starship too."

Once upon a time the idea would have pleased me. Now, after the Expanse, it brought with it a shiver of remembered fear. "But I hope you won't," I added in a whisper, kissing his soft forehead. "There's a lot of bad people out there..."

And good people too. Like Degra, and Shran, and even Ambassador Soval, who evidently wasn't the complete grouch we'd all thought him. I'd seen the way he greeted T'Pol when the shuttlepod landed, and, stoic old Vulcan that he is, even he hadn't been able to completely hide his gladness at having her home; though I thought he was almost as shocked as he was glad. I guess that those of us who were _out there_ never really saw the changes in each other the way those left behind would see them now, and T'Pol had come a long way by some crooked paths to become the worn waif who followed the captain out into the light of Sol.

All the people aboard _Enterprise_ were due their accumulated shore leave, so most of the crew were still away from San Francisco. The ship herself was out at the repair yards, in the last stages of her rebuilding. Trip had come back from Vulcan a couple of days ago, just before his namesake was born, and the day after taking me to the convalescent home he'd gone straight to the yards. I hadn't heard from him since, though, and some of me was relieved and some of me was kind of hurt, because _hell, Trip, I thought we were friends…._

Maybe he was just too busy to call.

I had to admit, though, that even if he'd been in the best shape of his life the current situation would have been difficult for him. As it was, he was a very different person now from the one who had shipped out on the first Warp-5 capable starship, looking for adventure. When I saw him last, he'd even been different from the almost cheerful guy who'd given me a peck on the cheek as he left for the Vulcan compound that morning, though there was something about him that warned me off from asking; he'd gone with T'Pol and returned alone, and maybe that was all there needed to be said. During our brief relationship he'd made no secret of his anguished longing for her – it was the mirror of my own anguished longing for Malcolm, and maybe one of the good things about our time together was that we both understood that we weren't the love of each other's lives, but just someone to hold for a while to blot out the pain.

Charles Matthew Sato-Reed had been making faces of discontent for the last few minutes, and at that moment chose to announce that he was hungry. Okaasan called out to me that I was starving her grandson, and that she would make me some good tea to keep my milk supply up.

I didn't think she needed to worry – I had plenty on tap. I chose a discreet corner, carried out a chair from the dining room set and parked it there, and set about feeding my son. Even now both of us were still a bit new to this part of the game, and he fussed a bit before settling down contentedly .

Mother brought out the mug of tea and balanced it carefully on the windowsill beside me, grumbling that there were no cups and saucers. Her grumbles died away, though, as she looked down at the baby, his eyes fast shut as he concentrated. I still couldn't stop myself from touching his tiny perfect fingers, and now that the emotional see-saw of the first couple of days had steadied off, I just found myself melting into a ball of mush whenever we did this and I had time to just sit and watch him.

"You'll be strong enough soon for you to bring him home where we can look after you," she said, bringing out another of the chairs so she could sit with us. "You need feeding up."

At least she didn't mention the marks on my forehead, though I knew she hadn't missed them. Fortunately they were faded now, hard to spot if you weren't actually looking for them, and the counseling sessions I was still having with the Starfleet psychiatric team were helping me to cope with the memories associated with them, but it would probably be a long time before I stopped being assailed by flashbacks without warning on an almost daily basis.

The thought of going home to Japan was definitely appealing. I knew that my whole family would be waiting to welcome me; at a guess, there would be some kind of civic reception to be got through first, but that was par for the course. And the whole motherhood thing – unplanned motherhood, at that – was a pretty overwhelming prospect, and it would definitely be good to have some support while I got a handle on it. Not that I didn't have friends here, and Starfleet's support network would spring into action, but the fact was that most of the people with whom I'd worked and socialized for the past three years would be shipping out again when _Enterprise_ resumed her voyages of discovery. There'd probably be a rash of visitors when the crew started to reassemble for the relaunch, and then one day – in the time it took for the warp coils to engage – they'd be thousands of kilometers away and getting further with every second. Almost everyone with whom I'd shared the memories of the past three years; though there were a few who'd chosen not to go on the hunt for the Xindi, most of my closest friends were among those who'd stayed aboard.

Well. There was one member of the crew who wouldn't be shipping out. But my mother had so sedulously avoided mentioning him, let alone asking about him, that I knew the whole family had decided to act as though he didn't exist at all.

Presumably, as long as I went along with it, they could behave as though I'd somehow spontaneously become pregnant – just another of those weird things that happened 'out there'. Maybe we could all act as though 'the father' was just one more name on the list of casualties, someone who could be quietly, safely, respectably forgotten.

He so nearly _had_ been one of the casualties. For an instant the bright San Francisco day went away from me and I was back in that damned chair, with the Reptilians bending over me and the sound of Malcolm's screams rending my ears.

Dolim's yellow lizard-eyes had been bright with malice and mockery. _You can spare him all this._

 _"No, Hoshi – No! – Don't–"_

"Hoshi!"

I came back to the present with a jerk. The screams morphed into the wails of a baby I was gripping like death.

"I'm sorry, sweetie – I'm sorry!" With a conscious effort I relaxed my grasp, and Charles resumed suckling, blinking a bit uncertainly.

It wasn't the first time this had happened. Phlox had assured me it was extremely unlikely I'd actually do any damage, but I didn't think it was coincidental that I'd been released from the hospital the day they established that my mother was planning to stay with me.

"Have they done anything for you at all?" Okaasan demanded angrily. "They should never have taken you out there. Those terrible things we saw on the newscasts… it was no life for a young woman."

"It was my decision, Okaasan," I said steadily; we'd been over all of this before. Considerably more than once, in fact. She had seen my enrolment in Starfleet as a waste of my linguistic talents from the start, and made no secret of her delight when I was dumped out of the Academy. It had been bad enough when I was coaxed into accepting a post aboard _Enterprise_ when the voyage was just one of discovery; my electing to stay on as part of the crew when the ship was destined to go in search of the Xindi had been utterly incomprehensible to my parents. I couldn't remember how many times the ship-to-shore comms had crackled with Okaasan's efforts to persuade me to stay at home where I was safe – as though Earth was safe if we failed! "And I've had counseling. My next appointment's the day after tomorrow." I stroked Charles's feathery wisps of dark hair, passing my finger lightly over the fontanelle where the pulse beat steadily. "I wasn't the worst of the casualties, you know."

Either she didn't know, or she didn't want to know. She made a rapid gesture with one hand as though flicking that idea out of the conversation. "We will find better counselors when you come home. People who understand _our_ ways."

I lifted my gaze at that. "How many psychiatrists in Okinawa have met a Reptilian, Mother?" I asked, forgetting in my anger to use the proper Japanese title she preferred. "How many of them even have experience with spaceflight mental problems? How many of them have patients who've got–" With my free hand I brushed aside my hair, which I wore loose in the privacy of home.

Her lips compressed. "Jonathan Archer should have protected you better. An innocent young woman! He should have made sure that… bad things could not happen to you."

"Like Charles, you mean," I said coldly.

"I am not here to quarrel with you, Hoshi. But your life – your _career…"_

"And the disgrace."

She stood up abruptly. "We brought you up as well as we could. We gave you chances many children could never dream of. With your talents, you could have worked in the greatest universities, married into one of the highest families. And yet here you are, with a child and no prospects. I hope that Starfleet will provide for you, because it will be hard to find a respectable husband for you now."

It took a heroic effort to keep my lips closed on the retort that sprang to them. I knew it was my duty to respect my parents, but this wasn't the first time I'd wondered if they'd ever get a grip on the realities of the modern world. So many of their attitudes belonged to a bygone age, and unfortunately they weren't the only ones; I knew that some of their friends, and indeed some of the family, would be hiding smiles of disdain at my having borne a child out of wedlock.

"You always did think you knew better than your elders," she continued. "Well. You are our daughter and one of the family, and we will look after you. We will make the best of the situation."

"I'm sure we can find someone to look after Charles," I said with deliberate, deceptive mildness.

She nodded. "We will make sure he is very well cared for," she assured me.

Counting to ten didn't dissipate half of the temper that seized me at this confirmation of my suspicions. It was nearer thirty by the time I felt it safe to reply, and in that time the half-formed thought that it might be for the best after all if I submitted to my family's plans for me and my baby had evaporated as though I'd dumped it into the ship's warp coil.

"I am grateful – _very_ grateful – for you coming here, Mother," I said, measuring my words with extreme care. "But one person you seem to have forgotten to mention is the baby's father."

Her cup crashed on to the table. " _Sukebe!_ " she hissed. "We will make sure he does not bother you, Hoshi. It was a mistake. Whoever he was, forget him. You can do better – much better." An angry glance around the apartment. "Do not tell him where you live. It is better for him not to know."

"Not to know?" My voice shot up in incredulity. "Mother, this is his _son_ you're talking about!"

"His son, yes. And where is he, this brave man who seduced an innocent girl and left her in trouble? Is he here, helping you, giving his child a name? No! He has vanished, like the _koshinuke_ he is, leaving you to bear the baby and the disgrace!"

Starfleet had issued strict orders that the condition of the casualties of the voyage should not be discussed or even disclosed outside the confines of the compound. This hadn't bothered me till now; it was all too easy for me to imagine how it would lacerate Malcolm's pride for it to become common knowledge how frail he was, even now. But at this demolition of his character, my fragmenting control over my temper finally gave way.

"He has not 'vanished', Mother!" I exploded. "He is in a Starfleet hospital unit, where he has been since we got back to Earth. He was hurt, something happened to him and he was hurt, body and mind.

"He's getting better." I swallowed sudden tears at the recollection of the wonder in his face as he held his son for the first time. "But it – it's going to take a while. He's still sick, he may not ever be able to go back to active duty. But he's not a lecher and he's not a coward, Mother! If he could, he'd be right here with me now, doing whatever he could to help out.

"As for him 'seducing an innocent girl', if you want the truth, _I_ seduced _him._ He wasn't my first lover and I knew exactly what I was doing.

"He's a good man. You have no idea. And I love him, and I'm not going to fly off to Japan and take his son away from him. If you met him, you'd understand. And I hope you _can_ understand.

"I _love him_ , Mother. For months out there I thought I'd lost him and I couldn't imagine my life without him. When we found him again it was just like a miracle. So I plan on staying here and supporting him, just like he would if I was the one in there. I'm sorry if that's a disappointment to you and _Okasama_ , but that's my decision. I hope you can respect that."

She was staring at me by now as though I'd grown an extra head. "I know how difficult the first few days after childbirth can be," she said at last. "So I will make allowances. We raised you to be a good girl, a dutiful girl who respects her parents and her family. I will stay with you, and help you, and when you have thought about everything you will realize that we know what is best, for you and for the baby.

"I respect your feeling that you have a duty to that man, but it does not sound as if he could give you the support you need. He will probably be too occupied with his recovery to have time for family responsibilities, and you should think what an additional burden you would be to him. It would be better for everyone if you came home, at least for a while. Maybe when everything has settled down you can think again, and in the meantime the best place for you is with your family."

She rose. By the stiffness of her posture I knew she was both disappointed and offended by my refusal to be compliant. "There is no food in this place. I will need to go out and buy some."

"You could order online," I pointed out.

"And be fobbed off with whatever fruit and vegetables they want to get rid of! No, Hoshi. I am surprised you could even consider it. A nursing mother should have only the best, and until you are strong enough to go out I shall provide it for us."

The offer of my credit chip was spurned with loathing, leaving me feeling both grateful and resentful; she and my father were quite wealthy enough to stand my grocery bill without even noticing, but I knew she was using it to exert pressure on me. "I shall have it delivered here this evening," she added, going to the door. "And I have the spare key, so you will not need to let me in. After you have fed Charles it will do both of you good to have a little sleep. And maybe when you are more rested and settled you will see that I am in the right."

She was going out alone, in a city she didn't know, but I wasn't worried about her in the least. Her tiny frame concealed astonishing reserves of determination and boundless self-confidence. She'd find her way to the nearest decent food store and bully them unmercifully.

After which, she'd turn her energies to marshaling me into order. At a guess, she and _Okasama_ had concocted this plan between them – I wouldn't be in the least surprised to find that the foster-family had already been all, why would they imagine that I might want to keep an unplanned baby whose father's career prospects had been wrecked by the Expanse, and who would be such a formidable obstacle to my own?

In ordinary circumstances I wouldn't have been worried at all; I was well past the stage of being ordered about like a little girl. But the circumstances were far from ordinary. Her observation about our being a burden to Malcolm had hit home, and I carried Charles into the bedroom and lay down, staring at the nondescript picture on the wall as though I could read the answer to my problems in it.

After all, our relationship hadn't exactly been the romance of the century. Try as I might, I couldn't even remember him saying he loved me. Want, need, yes. In the darkness of our respective bunks he'd sometimes been surprisingly eloquent for a man who had the reputation of being shy around women.

Love, though? I didn't think he'd ever said so. And in the Expanse it hadn't seemed to matter. We were grabbing a little joy, a little water in a desert. But we'd never spoken about the future, and a baby had never, ever figured in our plans. I could hardly blame him for looking stunned when I finally got around to telling him it was his.

Charles' appetite was all but satisfied by now. His eyes were half-closed, the dark lashes drooping towards his cheek; he was a good baby, and generally nodded off after a feed, allowing me to get some sleep. I gently wiped a dribble of milk away from the side of his mouth and started rocking him, and was horrified to find tears seeping out of my eyes.

What if Malcolm didn't want the complications of being a father? What if I really _was_ being selfish, burdening a sick man with all the problems of parenthood when he had so many problems of his own to face and overcome?

If I'd hardly recognized him on the Reptilian ship, I really did struggle the day I came to Sickbay and found him in the middle of some kind of psychotic fit. He'd always been so strong, so self-possessed – it tore me up to find him cowering under the bed, locked away in some nightmare world of his own. I didn't know what finally reached him that day; I was just grateful something did.

And his recovery afterwards was so slow I hardly dared talk about anything more than absolute commonplaces when I visited him. He was sedated a lot of the time; Phlox said he had nightmares and needed to rest. He probably still didn't know the details of how we destroyed the Xindi Weapon, though we'd told him as much as we thought he needed to know. It was an indicator of how low he'd fallen that he'd hardly reacted at all when Trip told him how the captain had been beamed out by a Reptilian ship as the Weapon started to explode and Enterprise had to give chase and board her to rescue him.

"He'll be okay, honey, you'll see," I whispered to the top of my baby's head. "Your daddy's a fighter. It'll take him a while, but he'll get through this."

I believed that.

I _had_ to _._

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	2. 2: Gomez

Somehow I was not surprised at all to find a certain _Comandante_ Hayes waiting at the terminal as I walked out into the airport concourse in San Francisco.

I was not at all displeased either, but I was not going to let him know that.

"Looking good, Ensign," he greeted me, taking my flight bag without asking my permission first, which I would not have given him.

"I feel very well, _Comandante_ ," I replied neutrally. If I was pleased that I had visited a hair stylist that morning before boarding the plane, he was not going to find out about it.

"I've got a flitter waiting. Straight to HQ?" He was not in uniform, but his cream short-sleeved shirt and immaculately pressed trousers had a military cut and did nothing to hide his broad shoulders. It was beyond exasperating that he should be so very handsome.

I resolved not to notice at all.

"No, if you please. I have arranged to visit Hoshi. She has had the baby, and I am to be his godmother." It was rather difficult to keep the note of pride out of my voice.

"Congratulations." He had no right at all to have such a shy smile. "I guess you've heard what the baby's names are?"

"Charles," I nodded. "Trip is the _patrón_ 's _mejor amigo_ as well as his superior officer. I would have bet my next year's wages on that name." I let the silence hang for half a second before I added casually, "And Matthew … I dare say they could have chosen worse."

"Ensign."

He had stopped. I stopped too, and looked up at him innocently over my sunglasses. "We are both out of uniform and off duty, _Comandante_ ," I observed sweetly. "There is no obligation for us to continue addressing each other by our ranks, but if you insist…."

He paused, and looked at me very hard. "Emilia," he said at last.

 _Dios bueno!_

It was not as though nobody had ever called me by my Christian name before. Even my _patrón_ had called me by it in the beginning, when it was not in accordance with the Regulations to call me Ensign (which, of course, he preferred to do, being English and a man as well as an officer). But for some unknown reason it sounded utterly different in _Comandante_ Hayes' voice.

I was exasperated by my own foolishness. It had become a very exasperating world since I emerged from the airport lounge.

" _Guau!_ So you know what it is!" I threw over my shoulder, resuming my stroll towards the flitter park.

"I've known what it is since we shipped out, Ma'am," he replied, and by the sound of his footsteps I knew that he had increased his speed somewhat to catch up with me. "I have to admit that it was a while before it had any special significance for me."

Hurrying would have been undignified. Also useless, as he had much longer legs than mine. This was a very good excuse.

Also I did not know where his flitter was parked. I squashed a little voice that hoped it was at the very furthest part of the compound.

He was wearing a very pleasant aftershave. (Not that I notice such things, of course.) It reminded me just a little of rosemary's subtle, dusty sweetness. On the ship he had always been immaculately turned out, but today, even when he was off duty, it seemed that he had still taken a great deal of care over his appearance.

"Emilia," he said again.

No more than that. But half against my will, I walked a little more slowly.

This man had enraged my _patrón_ for months, had disrupted our happy order aboard _Enterprise_ and caused altogether a great deal of aggravation in my life.

He had also worked tirelessly to protect the ship, and risked his life to bring back my two dear friends and comrades from a place where they would both certainly have died. In the process he had been badly wounded, and it was not until that happened that it dawned on me that I would be sorry – no, I would be a great deal _more_ than sorry – if he did not survive.

He was walking beside me now. Very close beside me. Altogether closer than was proper for a Starfleet Ensign and a MACO _Comandante_.

My feet stopped, though I gave them no order to do so. But it was useful, because we would have to discuss how I was to get to Hoshi's apartment, so I turned to him to ask.

But I did not get to ask about the apartment, or about anything else. Because he was kissing me without even asking my permission first, and I was enjoying it so much that I quite forgot about complaining. At least till afterwards, by which time he did not seem to take my complaints at all seriously, for he kept on kissing me so that I could not continue with them half as easily as I would have liked to.

Well. It turned out that he knew the address of Hoshi's apartment and had nothing better to do with his afternoon than drive me there. We did not arrive as early as I had originally hoped, because every time we passed a lay-by on the way he pulled into it and gave me even more reason to complain.

We reached the apartment eventually, and I ordered him to behave himself. I suspected that Hoshi had heard the tone of his 'Yes, Ma'am," because she gave him the strangest look when she opened the door, though it immediately changed to one of joyful welcome. And for a while I even forgot my indignation, because baby Charles was even more adorable than he had looked in the video transmissions, and of course I had to have lots of cuddles with my godson-to-be; cuddles in which _Comandante_ Hayes (no, of course I would not so far forget myself as to call him 'Matthew'!) also took part with surprising aplomb, seeming not at all perturbed by cradling a little baby, who slept through everything like a tiny dark-haired angel.

I ignored the knowing look that Hoshi spread between the two of us. She knew nothing about anything anyway. Instead I asked how things were.

Now, I have known Hoshi for a very long time. So when she said that everything was fine I knew immediately that she had been taking lessons from someone else who uses that word when nothing is 'fine' at all.

" _Estupendo._ " I nodded, at my most sarcastic. "So now you will tell us you are not missing Malcolm and you are not upset at how he is, and you are happy to be here alone with a new baby neither of you had planned for."

It was obvious that their time alone together had not included coaching in how to mount an effective defence. Or if it had, my _patrón_ had done an execrable job as a teacher, which would be most unlike him.

In fairness, in different circumstances she would probably have done much better. My conscience smote me when her eyes filled with tears and she had to turn away in the attempt to hide them, and Matt– _Comandante_ _Hayes_ gave me a reproachful look across the still sleeping _bebé_.

"Hoshi, listen to me. No, you must listen. I do not say these things to hurt you. It is just that before we can deal with a situation we must have the facts out in the open. Malcolm would be the first to tell you this."

"I'm not on my own," she whispered, pleating the baby's pretty crocheted blanket between her fingers. "My mother's flown over from Japan. She wants us both to go back there."

Fortunately I encountered _Comandante_ Hayes' steady, warning gaze before I said the first words that sprang to my tongue.

"And have you discussed this with Charles' _padre_?" I asked evenly, after the required five breaths.

"No, of course I haven't. I've hardly had ... Em, you _saw_ what he was like! How could I possibly drop a burden like this on him?"

"Let him find out for himself that you have taken his child to Japan without a word, and I guarantee you what his reaction will be." _Merda_ , all the MACOs in Hayes' company would not be enough to keep him in the convalescent home.

The _comandante_ shook his head. "Wouldn't want to be on the same continent, Miss Sato."

Hoshi folded her arms around her abdomen and rocked with distress. "I know, I know – I don't want to do it to him! But you're all going to be leaving when _Enterprise_ goes, and I hardly know anyone around here. And my mom said he'll probably need to put all his energy into getting well again, and – at first I didn't want to know, but maybe she's talking sense – just for a little while–"

Another, more vehement head-shake. "Ma'am, I've never met your mother and I'm sure she has only your best interests at heart. But it's plain to see that she doesn't know Lieutenant Reed if she thinks he'd take a thing like this lying down. And little Charles here needs his father."

I looked at my friend steadily. "You have been through so much, Hoshi. A weaker woman would be lying in a hospital bed demanding to be waited on hand and foot. I cannot believe there is no more to this than you being afraid of not having the support you need."

She took Charles back and sat rocking him, staring out blindly at the sunshine as she patted him gently on the back. He stirred, yawned and went back to sleep.

"It's all so _complicated_ ," she said at last, reaching for a box of paper handkerchiefs and scrubbing her eyes dry. "When I found out I was pregnant I – well, I'll be honest, it was a disaster. Then, then he got himself 'killed', and all I could think of was that this was all that was left of him. And I loved him. Or I thought I did. No, I did. I'm not making much sense, am I?"

"Take all the time you need, Ma'am."

Hoshi scrubbed at her eyes again. "I just need – I just need to get a grip on things now, is all. I don't want to walk away and desert him, but then I don't want to stay with him out of pity, because he deserves more than that. And I don't want him to stay with me because he feels he ought to, because of Charles." Her mouth twisted. "And it doesn't feel like either of us can be honest with each other, and there's so much ... so much I need to say and so much I want to ask; what the heck _happened_ to him out there? Phlox says I've got to wait till he tells me of his own accord, but you know Malcolm: he'd sooner rip his own intestines out than talk about things that hurt. And he _is_ hurting, I know he is. But when I try to get him to talk, he just says he's 'fine'."

Matthew looked at her seriously. "I appreciate you being so frank in front of me, Mi– Hoshi," he corrected himself quickly, intercepting and interpreting with accuracy a watery glare for his formality. "I appreciate that I'm not the first person you'd choose for discussing personal issues – especially given my particular history with Lieutenant Reed."

She gave a huff of a laugh. "Major, you don't need to dress it up; Malcolm can be an oversensitive, insecure, paranoid ass. That said, I don't think you were the innocent either, but the bottom line is that that's something the both of you have to resolve. It doesn't stop me thinking of you as a friend I can trust."

He was sitting on the chair at right angles to the sofa where she was seated with her legs drawn up, and at these words he leaned forward, careful not to disturb baby Charles, and catching up her hand he dropped a light salute on her knuckle, while I looked on approvingly. "I thank you for the compliment, Ma'am. If there's anything I can do to help you or the lieutenant, just let me know."

"I don't see what anyone can do," Hoshi answered in despair. "Em here will be reporting to the ship in the next few days, I suppose you'll be reporting back to your unit. Malcolm won't be fit to be released for weeks, maybe, depending on how he progresses. Most of the people I used to know here have been deployed to their own ships or they've just moved on with their lives. And I'm just going to sit here on my own and think till I go crazy."

"Will you not visit him sometimes?" I asked.

"Of course. And I'll take Charles." She bent and kissed the baby's head lightly, but when she looked up again her eyes were full of pain. "Em, there's something I need to talk about..."

She paused for so long that I knew of what she was thinking. I glanced at _Comandante_ Hayes, measuring his likely response, but if Hoshi trusted him then so would I. "You mean _Comandante_ Tucker?" I said very gently.

She paled, and her eyes filled again. "You knew about us?"

"Hoshi. I was in charge of the ship's security in a high risk situation; it was my job to know where people were. It does not follow that those who know things tell of them. And who was I to pass judgement on how you found comfort? _Teniente_ Reed was gone, or so we all believed. There is no infidelity to the dead."

She put her free hand to her face, but the tears spilled through her fingers. "It felt like it," she sobbed. "I know we all thought he was dead, but it just felt so wrong. The first time, I don't know, we were a bit drunk and it just ... it just happened. And afterwards, I was lonely and he was hurting, and it didn't feel like we were hurting anybody. He was just someone to hold, and I'm pretty sure that's what I was to him.

"And then we find Malcolm didn't die after all. Don't get me wrong, I've never been so happy in my life, but it changes everything about what Trip and I did. And when I said he could pick the baby's name and he chose 'Charles', it ... it almost felt like he knew what had happened and was ... was punishing me for it. And there's never, I don't know how to even start talking about it..."

"It changes _nothing_ ," I told her firmly, interrupting before she grew so upset she woke the baby, who would infallibly pick up on her distress. "It does not change the fact that you did what you did because you believed he was dead; it was no fault of yours that you were wrong, for the _capitán_ himself believed it. I know that _Comandante_ Trip believed it, because if he had not he would never have laid a finger on you.

"Hoshi, it is true what I just said: there is no infidelity to the dead. There are only the ways in which the one left behind somehow finds the strength to go on living. Malcolm would be the last man on Earth to blame you for that."

"But I was _expecting_ his _baby_ ," she wept.

 _Comandante_ Hayes took charge of the situation. Gently he picked up little Charles and handed him to me, and then he changed places to sit beside Hoshi and coaxed her into his arms. "You don't need to explain, Hoshi, and you sure as hell don't need to justify your actions to us. I think what you need is a damn good cry," he said softly. "Come on. Let it out."

Which she proceeded to do, and I was entirely on Matthew's side in thinking that this was a thing she had very much needed to do. No doubt she had shed tears during the counselling sessions at the Starfleet Medical Centre, but to cry among friends instead of before strangers is an entirely different thing, and brings healing at a far deeper level.

Moreover, I was once again impressed by the _Comandante_ 's aplomb in a situation many men would have found more than difficult. He made no attempt to calm or hush her, but let her weep her heart out on his shoulder, seeming not even to be conscious that his beautifully ironed shirt would be ruined.

Nor did I think any the less of Hoshi for her tears; I have three sisters and two of them have babies, and so I know very well how a new mother's emotions are completely wayward for a while. As soon as her body had recovered she would be back to being the strong Starfleet officer I knew and loved.

Meanwhile, however, she was vulnerable and felt herself to be alone. I had not yet visited Malcolm and so could make no judgement of my own on his condition, though that was a situation I intended to remedy the very next day, if it could not be arranged sooner. But I have my contacts, and I knew that my _patrón_ was still far from well; if his recovery was to be as rapid as possible, it would be best to keep from him any burden that others could shoulder.

Still, the idea of Hoshi and his baby son being taken thousands of kilometers away from him was bound to affect him deeply. And though she had not said so, I suspected most strongly that once she was in Japan, her family would exert all their influence to persuade her it was best for all concerned for both she and her son to remain there.

Well. I could do nothing here and now, but this was not something that should be left to chance. I resolved in silence that the moment I was out of earshot, I was going to set enquiries in motion.

Even as I came to this resolution I looked up and found the _Comandante_ 's eyes fixed on me. I thought it was a great piece of impudence on his part that he should look suspicious.

He could look as suspicious as he chose. He was no longer my commanding officer – the MACO contingent had been withdrawn from _Enterprise_ , though I suspected that the events of the Expanse might have turned _Capitán_ Archer's mind towards requesting at least a few of them to be reassigned on board her when we set out again. I did not know who would be the new Tactical Officer until _Teniente_ Reed rejoined us (if indeed he ever did). All of these things would be part of the mission briefings that would start again shortly, but until then I was a free agent, and _Comandante_ Hayes could keep his opinions to himself.

 _¡Mierda!_ That was the theory...


	3. 3: Hayes

Heck, I'd thought she was hard to handle when I was as insignificant a person as her CO.

As we finally walked away from Hoshi's apartment into the evening sunshine, determination in every inch of her quick stride, I felt as though I'd roped a starship and was about to try reining it in.

"Ensign," I said quietly.

No answer.

I heaved a silent, resigned sigh. "Emilia."

Her glare was lethal. " _Qué?_ "

"Mrs. Sato has Hoshi's best interests at heart," I told her. "She's an intelligent, resourceful woman who's already got a support network ready for her daughter and her grandson. She's her _mother_ , for Pete's sake. You _can't_ think she's got all this planned for some – some 'sinister reason', whatever that could be! You heard her yourself, and she's absolutely right: Hoshi needs support that Malcolm's not in a position to give her, and it'd be easier for everyone if she can come home for a while just till the situation stabilizes. I'm sure if someone puts it to Malcolm _that_ way he'd come around. It's not like it'd be forever."

The eyes I'd been thinking for a while now were so beautiful narrowed at me like gun-slits. "Ah, how easy! How beautifully convenient a solution for everyone! And who will there be then to speak up for the rights of the child's father, who is not even there to put his case?"

"Em!" I snapped. "What the heck do you think is going on here? Mrs. Sato wants her daughter to be in the best place to have the care and support of her whole family instead of being stuck here on her own! And it's not even like Hoshi still knows what she feels about Malcolm. Maybe if she's somewhere where she can rest and relax she'll be more able to think things through, and that will be the best thing for both of them. All three of them, actually, because the baby won't benefit from being stuck in the middle of an unstable relationship."

She stopped so suddenly I almost cannoned into her, and eyed me malevolently. "So. You would like to be the one to go visit _Teniente_ Reed in the convalescent home and tell him that on the command of a woman he has never even met, his son and the woman he loves have been taken to a foreign country and nobody can tell him when, or even if, he will ever set eyes on them again.

" _Madre de Dios!_ How much do you hate the man?"

I couldn't help but wonder if she'd spent all her spare time on board ship reading lurid tales of kidnapping and conspiracy. Still, in view of the fact that I was kind of hoping to explore the possibilities of a relationship with her, this was not a tactful moment to bring up that particular theory. Instead I edited it out of what I'd been going to say and confined myself to pointing out that Reed was a reasonable guy (well, except when it came to thinking I was after his job, but I edited that out too) and would want Hoshi and Charles to be in the best place where they could be looked after by people who cared about them. His own 'rights' would probably figure well down in his list of priorities.

Her scorn was magnificent. I was aching to kiss her again, but my sense of self-preservation suggested now wasn't the time, unless I actually wanted to be dumped on my butt on the flitter-park pavement. So I let her seethe in silence for a while until we were out on the freeway heading back towards the city center.

I had to admit, though, that there was some merit in her determination that Malcolm and Hoshi should not be separated at this juncture. With any luck, if they stayed within touching distance of each other they could do some of the talking they so badly needed to if this relationship of theirs was going to work out; for little Charles' sake as well as for their own, his parents needed to come to _some_ kind of understanding. Or at least – given that Reed was still in a bad way, frankly I'd been horrified by how gaunt he'd started to appear – made a start on it. Maybe if he felt happier he'd start to eat. A guy like Reed needs responsibility, needs to feel he has a job to do.

Given what had happened to him, I could imagine the worst thing possible was for him to be locked up in a room with too much time to think. He was a workaholic at the best of times; now he was isolated, bored, and probably still in pain. He was used to having duties that kept him busy sometimes eighteen hours out of twenty-four, and now he had nothing to do but contemplate the end of his career – because if he couldn't pull through this, he'd be invalided out of Starfleet. I doubted he had the mental capacity right now for the kind of intense technical detail his job entailed, and unfortunately for him, he certainly had the capacity to realize that. And add to that the knowledge that the woman he presumably cared for, and the son he'd only just found out about, had upped and gone to the other side of the world ... well, in spite of my claims that he'd understand, it didn't bode so well for his recovery.

I still wondered exactly what _had_ happened to him. Rumors, of course, abounded. A man doesn't 'die' and come back to life six months later without being talked about. The captain didn't say much; except that Malcolm had been through some kind of traumatic experience and would need time and care to recover from it.

To start with, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who wondered if he ever _would_ recover from it. He was so unstable I had an armed guard posted in Sickbay in case he attacked Phlox. My team have seen a few rough sights, and none of them carried any particular torch for Squid Lieutenant Reed, but I think some of them were pretty shaken up by the sight of him, especially at first.

"I take it you've got some plan of your own," I remarked now as we bowled along in the flitter with the top down. Her sunglasses were perched on the top of her head and she looked like a movie star – a stunning contrast to her appearance on _Enterprise_ , where the long, glossy black waves of her hair were usually caught severely back into a ponytail. She was wearing a white blouse pulled up and knotted between her breasts, exposing a tantalizing hint of cleavage and her flat midriff; the dark gray skirt underneath it was short enough to show off her lovely long legs, but not vulgar. Romero had a talent for catching a likeness in caricature, and one day I'd intercepted a PADD being passed around with his take on Ensign Gomez. It portrayed her as an action figure, her distinctly voluptuous curves lent decency only by a strategically-placed bandolier and the precise elevation of the oversized phase rifle she was toting. Out of respect to a fellow officer and a Fleeter I had to order him to destroy it, even though I couldn't help appreciating the skill in it. Nevertheless, on days like today – when she was already looking so beautiful, even in relatively ordinary clothes – the memory crept treacherously into my thoughts.

She tossed her head. "I am a tactical officer. It is my job _always_ to have a plan in mind," she pointed out.

I looked hard at her. "So, any chance you're going to fill me in on it?"

A slanted glance. " _Quizás_. You may perhaps come in useful."

"Well, I'm real pleased to hear that. Mind telling me how?"

"That depends."

"On what, exactly?"

"On whether you have the loan of a shuttlepod."


	4. 4: St Clair

It was April.

The winter had been wet and mild for the most part; there had been a few nights cold enough to paint frost-ferns on the greenhouse windows and nip the branches into bare brown submission, but there had been no snow after that seasonal flurry over Christmas.

Today, however, felt as though spring was finally on its way. Early grey cloud had cleared away, so that the sky was a heavenly blue broken only by the occasional benign pile of fair-weather cumulus. Even the wind was warm as it pushed against my face, and the bright yellow faces of the daffodils danced against the wall. The white lace of the blackthorn bushes in the lane foamed over the top of it, each twig with its burden of single blossoms as exquisite as a Japanese painting, while at the bottom of the garden the almond tree flourished the last of its pale pink stars against the distant blue.

I'd watched so much television over the last few days that I was all but astonished by the vista of the world, the revelation of the new greenness that had sprung up on all sides. Hawthorn bushes were sprouting their first tender shoots, turning the hedgerows soft and hazy. High overhead a pair of red kites were courting, turning graceful circles in the air; soon the hen would be laying her eggs in the pinewoods down the valley. All around me the sound of birdsong announced that the long dark winter was over, and it was time to be up and doing.

The bells in the church down the valley had been ringing, but had now fallen silent; the service must have started. They had rung out across the silent fields for hours, peal upon wild, joyous peal, when the news came that our own year-long winter was over – the winter of fear, during which the whole world had crouched like a hare in a furrow while the winged death passes overhead. _Enterprise_ had triumphed, and seven days ago had come limping home to the welcome appropriate for heroes; though there were fewer on board than there had been when they set out, and to my eye at least, the title 'heroes' sat uncomfortably on those who remained. I knew very well that there was one pair of shoulders to which that title would soon become an insupportable burden, for all that he might well have enjoyed the novelty of it at first.

Malcolm had not been among the officers paraded for the Press on the ship's return. He'd hardly even been alluded to, except as one of the surviving casualties.

'Surviving casualties'. What did _that_ mean, exactly? My mind roamed through horrors, envisaging him eyeless, limbless, crippled.

We had him back. At least we had him back; I took what comfort I could from that. But until I could know, until I could see him with my own eyes, I would be sick to my heart with worry.

Starfleet _must_ have contacted his parents by now, surely? Spoken to my fool of a brother and his wife, who couldn't even be bothered to telephone me and tell me how he was.

His masters had appealed for privacy for the families of the dead and injured.

'Privacy', indeed. I'd sniffed derisively as I switched off the television. The man would be a hunted animal. Now that the danger was past, the media would be desperate for details of the cost in life and limb, for the minutiae of suffering. They'd want photographs, video footage, interviews; reactions from the bereaved, the grieving. The family of that poor Mr Fuller – one of the Armoury crew, from Southampton – had virtually gone into hiding when the news of his death had been announced. No wonder Stuart had stopped answering the telephone. He was the last man on earth who would be able to cope with fools pestering him; he'd had more than enough of the furore when _Enterprise_ shipped out.

Surely, I thought now, walking slowly down towards the cherry arbour, someone would contact me. If he was able to do so, he would do it himself. The fact that the ship had been back for over a week and I had heard nothing set the cold hand of fear squeezing at my heart. I'd heard from him within hours of their arrival when they had been recalled; he knew, he must know, if he knew anything at all, that I would be desperate for news of him.

I pictured him lying in a hospital bed, in a coma. Without a single member of his family at his bedside – for I knew that Stuart and Mary were still at home; I'd seen them in the village the previous day, getting into their flitter. I'd been too far away to call out to them, and nobody had answered the phone later on. Again.

They still hadn't gone to be with him. If they had done, Stuart would have sent me a message asking me to make sure that the mail didn't accumulate in the front porch, evidence of their absence.

There was Maddie, of course, but she was in Malaysia, working on a humanitarian project that was apparently in some difficulties. I already knew that it was difficult for her to get leave, and suspected that she would wait until more definite news was available. A practical soul, she would see little point in a bedside vigil beside a comatose brother.

There was a seat at the far end of the arbour. He and I always sat there on his rare visits, even if it meant sweeping the snow off it. I remembered the last Christmas when he visited; we'd had glasses of mulled wine, and the heat of them had warmed through my mittens even as the cold of the frozen seat had gnawed through my duffle coat. The vapour of our breath had smoked out on the icy air as we watched the birds coming to the feed-table I'd refilled: a couple of magpies, a scatter of chaffinches, a blackbird and – a rare and unexpected visitor – a jay, the blue flash on his wings brilliant in the cold clear sunshine.

I remembered now that I had made him laugh as we sat there, but treacherous memory had mislaid the details, and suddenly it mattered so dreadfully that I could only remember his laughter and not the cause of it.

I reached the seat and sat down on it. Usually I felt him near me there, but today there was an emptiness that tightened the clutch of fear.

Would I ever see him again?

I took my mobile phone from my pocket. Usually it was a thing I rarely used and often forgot about altogether, but these days it was my constant companion. I couldn't take the risk that I might miss his call, whenever it should come.

I'd even humbled myself to send Stuart several texts, begging him to pass on any news. He hadn't replied to any of them. I've always known he dislikes me, but he knows very well in what regard Malcolm and I have always held one another; I wasn't in the least surprised to receive no answer. As for Mary – I wasn't even sure she had the spirit left to defy her husband, so I didn't bother sending to her phone. It actually wouldn't have surprised me at all to learn that in the circumstances, Stuart had confiscated it.

These were the situations in which I most missed Eddie's steady presence. I'd already walked down the road that morning to the cemetery and talked the problem over with him; the church might have been deconsecrated and closed up, but there had been no suggestion of moving the graves, some of which were centuries old. I think there would have been a riot if anyone had dared to broach the idea.

No texts. No missed calls. I had Malcolm's number, of course, and now he was back on Earth it would ring out if it was switched on, but if he couldn't ring me I doubted strenuously whether he'd be in any shape to answer it. And I couldn't bear the thought of hearing his recorded voice promising to ring back – a promise he might never keep.

I thumbed down the contacts list. His photo smiled up at me. I've heard people say he's grim-faced, but he smiled when I took that photo, a gentle look in his eyes.

He had friends on board ship; when he'd visited he'd talked about them often. But at a guess they'd already have more to deal with than they'd have time to handle. Half the world would be trying to get a word in edgeways. Who would have the time to listen to some obscure old woman who just happened to share a sick man's surname?

I stared helplessly down at the photograph. "Oh, Malcolm," I whispered. "My dear, dear boy. Tell me you're all right. For God's sake find some way to tell me."

I'd go to Stuart's house. I'd bang on the damned door till he opened it. I'd kick it down if I had to. _He_ must be able to get news. And what in the Name of God was Mary playing at? Her only son was 'a casualty', and she was still in Britain. If he was mine ... oh, how often I'd wished he'd been mine. I wouldn't have abandoned him like this.

"I've waited long enough!" I think I actually shouted it as I stood up. 'Silly old bat', any of the neighbours would have thought if they'd heard me.

I didn't give a hang. My nephew was lying in a hospital bed in San Francisco without a single soul of his own blood there to care for him.

I wasn't going to give Stuart the satisfaction of asking. I wasn't even going to do him the courtesy of telling him.

Eddie and I had never been wealthy like Stuart and Mary, but I still had a bit of money in the bank. Our 'rainy day fund', he'd liked to call it - just a little put by, and there was probably enough left to pay my funeral expenses when I finally kicked the bucket.

Well, the funeral expenses would have to take care of themselves; hell, Stuart could foot the bill, and with any luck the shock would kill him. I had a better use for the money.

Feeling more alive than I had for years, I stomped into the house. I'd book a ticket to San Francisco and wing it from there. It had been decades since I'd done anything so gloriously lunatic; my nephew would wake up to the nurses telling him his insane aunt from England had arrived to take care of him.

I'd never been further afield than Scarborough. I didn't even have a passport.

Well, I'd _get_ a passport. It couldn't be beyond the reach of ingenuity, and I wasn't in my bloody dotage yet!

I switched on the computer. Everything was done digitally these days. The damned Government kept track of everybody; surely it wouldn't take that long to issue me a passport.

... Fourteen _days!_ My ejaculation was one that would not have been out of place in a dockside drinking-house. Was there any means of expediting the process? Money, I knew, opened many doors...

I was just about to click on the 'Frequently Asked Questions' when I heard the sound of an approaching engine from outside. It was on the wrong side of the house for it to be a vehicle on the road, so I turned in my chair to look curiously out of the patio door and across the garden.

A shuttlepod was swooping low across the field beyond, plainly heading for the house. I watched, disbelieving, as it dipped towards me, but by the time it alighted as gently as a butterfly on the lawn I was already halfway towards it.

Of course I hoped. A hope that only lasted as long as it took for the door in the side to lift, and for two young people I'd never seen before to step out through it.

My heart faltered, and I clutched at my handkerchief. Were they here to bring me bad news? Their faces were grave enough.

The woman was probably in her late twenties and strikingly beautiful, her slightly olive skin-tone suggesting she was of Latin extraction. She halted opposite me. " _Seňora_ St. Clair?" she asked me directly, her Spanish accent delightful to the ear.

"Yes. And you are?"

"I am honoured to meet with you, _Seňora_ ," she replied, very formal. "My name is Gomez, Ensign Emilia Gomez of the Starship _Enterprise_. Permit me to introduce to you _Comandante_ , that is _,_ Major, Matthew Hayes, of the Military Assault Command Operations."

"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance," I said, trying to guess why on earth a MACO major should have brought a Starfleet ensign to my house. Or, indeed, vice versa.

"I apologise for coming here without an invitation," she went on, "but it concerns your nephew –- _Teniente_ Reed."

"Malcolm?" I stepped forward involuntarily. "Please – tell me how he is!"

"He's not good, Ma'am." The major spoke seriously. "He was badly injured, but physically he's recovering."

The inference was obvious. Physically, he was recovering. Mentally, he was not.

 _Malcolm._ My dear boy, that sweet young man who only wanted to bring honour to his family. Tears threatened, but I scrubbed them away resolutely. "How can I help him?"

The MACO nodded approvingly. "We were very much hoping you might ask that, ma'am."

"Of course I'd ask it. I'm not some pathetic ninny like–" Belatedly I closed my mouth on a very unflattering comparison.

Even in a rural place like this, the arrival of a Starfleet shuttlepod was going to attract attention. And there were still vultures hanging around Stuart's place, hoping to get a photograph of 'the grieving family'. It would only take one of them to have spotted the craft landing, and they'd be down here before you could say ' _Enterprise_ '.

"Come indoors," I said hastily. "And then you can have a cup of tea and tell me about my nephew."


	5. 5: Reed

Dawn.

As usual, it found me awake, sitting in the armchair by the window. And also as usual, the effort of doing a few slow and careful push-ups had drained me so badly that my limbs were shaking by the time I finally folded up among the cushions.

Bloody hell.

It wasn't like I'd never been injured before. What with one thing or another in my lively existence, there couldn't be many bones in my body I hadn't fractured at some time; although I had to admit guiltily to myself that I was an absolutely crap patient, I was usually a fairly quick healer. I kept myself fighting fit, which probably helped; and I loathed the feeling of being helpless, dependent. My pride demanded I get back on my feet as soon as possible – usually rather sooner than Phlox would have liked.

Well, he wasn't here to outmanoeuvre me now. God bless him, he was still helping to care for the wounded we'd brought home, some of whom were in far worse case than I was. It was only thanks to him that the casualty list hadn't been far longer, but even the quirky genius from Denobula couldn't produce spare limbs on demand. A few had been lost at Azati Prime – Engineering Crewman Ramesh's legs had both had to be removed below the knee. No doubt the technological resources of a grateful world would be put at the disposal of those tasked with treating the injured, but was that enough?

Personally, I doubted it.

But then, I was doubting pretty well everything these days.

My own sanity included.

At least I was back in a place where I _could_ reason. Where I could sit and think ... where I had little else to do _but_ sit and think.

To all intents and purposes, my career as a starship officer was over.

I'd worked hard to get that coveted place aboard _Enterprise_. The qualifications weren't just produced out of thin air – I slogged my bollocks off for them. The rank pips weren't given; they were earned. Maybe not quite the way your average Starfleet officer gets his promotions, but they were earned hard enough.

(I had Leo to thank for that. He could have let me just slob around the ship in quiet periods on missions but he didn't; he enrolled me in courses and saw to it that I put in the work. Not that I thanked him for it at the time – quite the contrary, I called him every name under the sun. Waste of breath, of course; it was about as much use as throwing ping-pong balls at Jupiter.)

Time had been when the knowledge that it was all lost to me would have had me throwing myself off the top of the nearest twenty-storey building. Even now, there were times when knowing that when _Enterprise_ was repaired and refitted she'd be relaunched without me brought a sensation of astonishingly deep loss, almost like bereavement.

Thankfully, both of my seconds had survived the mission with no worse than cuts and bruises. If the Powers that Be took account of my recommendations, the ship's next Head of Security would be either Bernhard or Em. If that was so, I need have little fear for my old comrades' safety. It was consolation – of a sort.

But times had changed. _I_ had changed. Above all, the demands of duty had changed; and whatever else might change, duty was still my God.

I was a father.

As often as I said it to myself, still the words echoed in my head, puzzling me. It wasn't that they were meaningless; they meant more than I could express, almost more than I could feel. It wasn't that I doubted Hoshi's word on the subject, either – though I'll admit I was struggling to perceive any of the resemblance that had been mentioned until the baby happened to frown in its sleep. Then, God help us, I saw it so clearly that Trip laughed out loud at the way my jaw dropped.

Git.

They'd brought me here a couple of weeks ago. All part of the recovery process – presumably I was now no longer considered to be in danger of running amok and biting people. And it was a very pleasant place, run by very pleasant people who asked did I mind them calling me Malcolm rather than Mr. Reed; I did, actually, but I was too bloody tired to be arsed telling them so. So here I was, and here I seemed likely to remain for a considerable time, being Malcolm-ed by pleasant strangers who enquired continually if I wanted to talk about anything.

Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did. I would very much have liked to be able to discuss the fact that I'd fallen down some kind of wormhole on some nameless lump of rock out in space and spent months Somewhere Else; somewhere I'd fallen in love and made friends and organised what I still prayed had been a successful operation against an invading enemy. That as far as I knew it had been real, that my hand went over and over again for reassurance to the Tribe Mark cut in my shoulder, the fingers prodding it to try to evoke the last echoes of the sting where Vais had cut it into my flesh and Briai had rubbed in the dye to mark me one of The People.

The alternative to which being that the whole damned thing had been either an induced or an involuntary hallucination, nothing more than a product of my own mind. Or deliberately programmed into it for some unknown and completely unimaginable reason.

The length of time between my being 'lost' by _Enterprise_ and 'found' by the Reptilians – unless they were lying through their damned teeth and had kept me prisoner all along – was so great that I couldn't possibly have survived, injured and alone, on that barren lump of rock. I'd have died of thirst within days, a week at most. You can live for a couple of weeks without food, but not without water. And I'd been MIA for _months._

Hence the speculation that still tormented me. Had Jessa and The People been real, or had I been taken prisoner by some – some 'unknown other' who kept me alive and unconscious for their own reasons until I was deposited back where they'd found me, just in time for the passing Reptilian ship to pick up the emergency transmission from my comm. unit?

This 'unknown other' was, almost without doubt, the source of the hallucination. If it _was_ a hallucination – and so once again I was back where I started, and no wiser for the prolonged stroll through the tulips.

Jessa. She was so real I could remember the little curl of hair at the nape of her neck, and the way she used to hum this little tune to herself when she was mixing her medicines. She'd sit crosslegged on her furs, with the wooden bowl between her knees – that damned bowl, the one that I was trying to hack out a replacement for the day the Red Pennant came – and hum to herself, as contented as a cat purring in the sunshine, with the rest of the ingredients or whatever laid out around her. And now and again she'd look up at me and smile, that smile that lit her face up like the sun had come out, and I'd wonder all over again what the hell I'd done to make a woman like this fall in love with me.

Hallucination be damned. I couldn't believe, I _wouldn't_ believe, that it was all some bloody fairy-story. Jessa had existed – they'd _all_ existed – and for a few amazing months I'd been privileged to share in their simple, warm, close-knit community. A privilege I'd repaid – I hoped – by helping to save that way of life for future generations.

But if it was true – where did that leave me?

Going back was not an option. Even if I could have worked out how the 'wormhole' part of the process operated, the chances of my finding a way back to that part of Space were non-existent (I could just imagine the faces at Starfleet Top Brass if I'd strolled in and asked for the loan of a starship), and the chances of my finding the planetoid itself even slimmer. Maybe in ordinary conditions T'Pol could have worked out its probable location, given its speed and last heading, but it was in the Expanse. It could have passed through any number of other anomalies before the destruction of the Spheres put an end to them, and been affected in any of a hundred ways. There were dozens of factors that could have affected its trajectory. It could have been pulled into a star's gravity, or even that of a large planet. It could have been struck by a comet. It was hardly the size of Earth's moon; in astronomical terms, it was about as significant as a grain of dust.

So. Once again – and this time, almost certainly for good – fate had closed a door behind me. Yet again I had to readjust my thinking, dust myself down and start all over again.

Staring out at the watery dawn over the Bay, I let out a humourless chuckle. I remembered thinking in terms like these the night Thais and Rakhor and their people arrived for Zelav's trial. How tired I was, no, how bloody _exhausted_ I was, of having to constantly get up again every time life knocked me down to my knees.

Maybe it was simply kismet. The just reward of the life I'd led before _Enterprise_. Given some of the things I'd done, I could hardly complain it wasn't earned.

But however well-deserved it might be, that didn't make it any easier to live with. This was the world I had to live in, these were the circumstances I had to accept. And somehow I had to work out a way to function, especially now that there was this additional and incredible development to take into my calculations.

I was a father.

Yes. Now, it all kept coming back to that.

And to Hoshi of course.

I hadn't told her the full story of what had happened to me – or at least what I _believed_ had happened to me. A few times I'd tried to nerve myself, but somehow it all seemed so impossibly complicated when I tried to construct the way I'd talk about it; and I was horribly conscious of the way it might affect her, finding out that I'd slept with another woman. And not just another woman: a woman I'd loved.

Hoshi and I had become lovers on board _Enterprise_ quite unexpectedly, at least on my part. I was attracted to her for a long time, but somehow managed to convince myself that even if she did (by some miracle) return my interest, it would be unprofessional and inappropriate to act upon that attraction. A conviction that lasted about as long as it took for her to grab hold of me and push her tongue down my throat one evening when I was giving her extra phase pistol practice; though I won't deny the feeling of guilt that constantly plagued me, our affair soon became something so precious to me I couldn't bear the thought of giving it up.

I didn't think I'd ever told her I loved her, though. It's a phrase I've never cared for, mostly because it's so casually used most of the time. Also it carries all sorts of implications, most of them of things that quite frankly scare me witless. Dependency, commitment ... permanence. Ideas that sit very poorly with my history of failed relationships and the dark things about my past that to date I've hidden so successfully.

I had cared about her. I still did – very deeply. But could I separate my life here from my past? Enough to make it work? Enough to make her happy?

Those things didn't matter with Jessa. She didn't give a toss about my past. Perhaps that was what helped me say to her things I'd never been able to say to any other woman in my life. After we'd made love – especially towards the end – I used to whisper ' _Mo ghrá thú_ ' into her hair. I told her it was something people in my country said to someone special. As she naturally didn't speak Gaelic, she didn't know I was actually saying 'I love you'.

I wish I'd just told her. If only once. I'd thought there would be time, that I'd get the chance; that the day would come when it would be right, special, when I could make it mean everything I wanted it to. I tried in every other way to show her how much she meant to me.

And, of course, I was wrong. Fate dictated otherwise. I never did get the chance to tell her, and I'll regret that for the rest of my life.

I think she knew, though. And I'm not sure she was that bothered about me not saying it in so many words. She always said how happy she was, and I was proud of that. Inordinately proud, if you want the truth; after a lifetime making so many women thoroughly miserable, I'd finally worked the miracle. The first time she said 'I am the most loved, the most fortunate of women', I felt ten metres tall.

And now I was a father.

Jessa was lost to me, along with everything she meant and could have been, and whether I liked it or not I had to once again try to pick up the fragments of a life that once was so brutally simple and was now complex beyond belief.

Sooner or later, Hoshi and I were going to have to have The Conversation. And depending very considerably on how much sense I managed to make of a topic that I couldn't even make sense of when I was talking it over with myself, my choices after that might narrow down enormously. I might find that I'd cooked my goose with Hoshi and lost my chance of being a father to my son in any meaningful sense of the word. I mean, if you found you'd had a child by a raving lunatic, would you want it exposed to him on a daily basis? I damn well wouldn't.

I would never have believed how much the prospect could hurt until the day I actually held my son for the first time in my rather inexpert arms. Even before I ... even before the little frown that finally showed me my own image, I felt this, this incredible _feeling._ Pride, joy, fear – protectiveness. Protectiveness before anything else. I'd have killed anyone who so much as looked at him the wrong way; and I'm not just saying that figuratively...

So. There we were. I'd spent another two hours on the treadmill on which I trudged wearily onwards day after day, getting nowhere. And soon there would be another knock on the door to herald the arrival of a well-meaning stranger armed with a hundred theories, who'd gently try to point out that when the brain is under enough stress it's perfectly possible even for a person to cut a design into their own flesh and not even know they're doing it...

Maybe they were right. I didn't know. I didn't know anything any more. Except that I was like _Enterprise_ with no helm control or navigation aids, rudderless and lost.

I hoped Hoshi would visit again soon. I didn't like to ask when she left; what right did I have to put pressure on her? She'd had my child, my _son_ , and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to help or support her. Instead I had to just sit there having shrinks pry around in my head to find out whether I was as mad as a bloody hatter before the Brass could start asking endless questions about what Starfleet intel I might have given away to whom. I'd never felt so helpless, so defeated, in my entire life. And that in itself was terrifying; I'm not a quitter, I've always tried to cope somehow, to find some way of clambering out of whatever shit falls on my head, but this time – this time it felt like it simply wasn't going to happen. I didn't even have the will to fight any more. Finally, I was done. Now, when Hoshi needed me to be there, when _my son_ needed me ... the shame alone was more than I could bear.

If my minders had known me better, I'd have been on suicide watch. As it was, I certainly wasn't going to clue them in. If I wanted to take my own way out, the discovery of my lifeless body would the first they'd know about it.

My parents hadn't even called. Not that I expected it, not really. If I'd been the one with both legs blown off that would at least have been heroic. As it was – 'mental issues'. Translates as 'lack of moral fibre' in Navy parlance, I dare say.

'Grit your teeth and deal with it like a man,' would have been the advice. I could do without it, thanks.

Trip visited a couple of times. Hoshi had said last time that he'd gone off to the yards the day before, to start supervising the ship's refitting. I thought he might have called in before he left, but he'd seemed uncomfortable with me for some reason. Probably didn't know what to say, and I couldn't blame him for that. 'Hey, seen any hallucinations lately?' It's a delicate topic of conversation.

Em came yesterday. She didn't say a lot, but I got the distinct feeling she was probably swearing as she walked back to the flitter park.

No-one else visited. I didn't blame them either; the months they spent out there in the Expanse deserved some richly-earned down-time with their families, who must have died a thousand deaths waiting for news every day. Maybe some of my Armoury staff would visit before they shipped out again, those who chose to. Maybe they wouldn't. I'd still be here, very likely.

Oh well. Another day, another dollar, as they said around here. And there came the knock on the door, bang on time. The hours had seemed like years.

No, of course I don't mind if you call me Malcolm.

Just don't call me Jag.


	6. 6: St Clair

A _child._

Oh, my poor boy. My poor, poor boy.

And Stuart knew of this. Surely he must know. And there he sat safe and sound in his bloody ivory castle, refusing to stir hand or foot to help the son who needed it more than he ever had in his life before!

I felt such rage and anguish I had to go into the kitchen and make another cup of tea. The measured movements of pot and china enabled me to focus, but still my hands trembled as I poured the milk.

A sudden voice behind me made me jump so badly that the milk spilled all over the work surface.

" _Seňora_ , did we do right to come here?"

I turned quickly. Emilia was standing in the doorway, her lovely face troubled.

"Oh, my dear. I have never been so glad of anything," I said. "I would never have been able to forgive myself if anything had happened to him."

She had tried so very hard to remain calm and detached throughout the recital, so clearly trying to be a credit to the man she called her _patrón_ that it revealed more than any words could have done in what esteem she held him. Now, however, grief and worry suddenly crumpled her face, and moments later we were clasping each other for comfort as though we had known one another for years.

"He needs help," she choked out. "He needs someone he can trust. Where he is, he has no-one."

"He will have someone now," I said stoutly, after mopping my eyes and blowing my nose several times on my ill-used handkerchief. The picture she had drawn so vividly – of Malcolm, ill and alone and utterly withdrawn in some Godforsaken sanatorium – had aroused all my protective wrath. What had they been _thinking_ of, those people who left him there? "I was just trying to find out how to obtain a passport when you arrived. I knew something was wrong – I simply _knew_ it!"

She drew back, her damp eyes now suddenly sparkling. "I knew you would not fail him! He has always spoken of you with such affection, I _knew_ you were the person to ask!"

"I'm just grateful you didn't go to my fool of a brother. Malcolm's father," I explained, in case she was doubtful of the relationship. "He'd have sent you away with a flea in your ear, I'd imagine."

"He could have tried," she said through shut teeth.

I eyed her with some trepidation and more admiration. At a guess, even Stuart would have had to be daunted by all this beauty and determination if it had materialised on his doorstep. Nevertheless, if I knew anything, his bull-headed unforgiving obstinacy would still have driven him to refuse the appeal; to Starfleet Malcolm had gone, let Starfleet look after him.

"Well, there's no need to bother our heads about him anyway." I disposed of the head of the family with a summary wave of the hand. "If I can get back to seeing about a passport–"

" _Santa Vierge!_ _Seňora_ , there is no-one in the Shuttlepod out there who will ask you for a passport!"

I blinked disbelievingly at the vehicle for a moment and then pulled myself together. However unorthodox the mode of transport might be, it would obviate the need for waiting for fourteen days before officialdom saw fit to issue me authorisation to travel to my nephew in dire need. "Five minutes to pack!" I said in a rush.

"As long as you need. Bring whatever you need, there is plenty of room."

My only suitcase was in the garage, long buried beneath the flotsam and jetsam of the years. I flew upstairs and grabbed Eddie's worn, capacious old rucksack from his wardrobe. A fresh nightdress, two leisure suits, five clean pairs of knickers and a bra completed my packing, with four neatly-pressed handkerchiefs bestowed in the front pocket, a few toiletries in one side pocket and my mobile phone in the other. My purse went into one of the pockets of my jacket, four more handkerchiefs into the other (I had a feeling I might need quite a number if Emilia's account was anything like accurate), and I was ready to go.

In my absence my two guests had disposed of the unneeded tea, cleaned the spilt milk and washed the tea-things; I noted approvingly that Major Hayes had not spurned his share of what even now some men refer to as 'woman's work'.

They seemed startled by my returning so soon.

"Five minutes I said, five minutes I meant," I responded briskly. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

To do her justice, Emilia hesitated for just a moment. Again, there was trouble in her face. "I am not sure – the _patrón_ 's _madre_?"

I hesitated too. That Mary cared about her son, that she loved him, I had no doubt. That she had a valid passport and could readily organise travel to the United States if she chose, I knew. Whether she had the spirit to gainsay her husband, to participate in what would undoubtedly be an act of outright rebellion if she left to go to the son he had practically disowned – that was quite different. The consequences could be, and probably would be, far-reaching. And in any case, every second's delay could be costly. If Malcolm was in the state of mental collapse that Emilia had described, I knew all too well he would not endure it indefinitely.

"If she wishes to visit him, it is for her to decide and to arrange," I said, sadly but with finality. "Now, if you please – take me to my nephew."

"Our pleasure, Ma'am," replied Major Hayes, with his wonderful old-fashioned manners that one so seldom sees in these uncouth days.

It has to be admitted that I eyed the shuttlepod with some trepidation as I walked out to it. But it had brought my guests here, so I was not going to refuse to risk it.

Malcolm needed me.


	7. 7: Phlox

I was surprised.

Well, to be entirely frank, I was considerably more than surprised.

I was _dismayed._

When I left Lieutenant Reed in the convalescent home I had been confident that the worst was behind him. He was not being very co-operative, but then he never is when it comes to his own treatment, and I firmly believed that I had left behind excellent guidance on his management – not to mention a little persuasive force by way of the technical reports he would only receive if his caregivers were satisfied with his behavior.

Normally this is sufficient to guarantee at least grudging compliance.

It transpired, however, that he was not only refusing to co-operate, he had not even looked at the report he had been eventually given in the effort to engage his mind. There was a program embedded in it to monitor how often he accessed it and how much time he spent reading; and unless the program was malfunctioning (unlikely, but not impossible), he had not so much as opened it.

"He is simply not _interested_ ," Doctor Fitzgerald expostulated, indicating the reports on his computer monitor. I had already accessed these while I waited for him to arrive, and they made disturbing reading; almost as disturbing, in fact, as the communiqué I had received from Ensign Gomez the day before. "We attempt every day to stimulate his brain, simply by engaging him in conversation. Occasionally he answers, but I have to admit that his response is growing less and less.

"Furthermore, he has almost stopped eating. We have been giving him supplements, but he is exceptionally astute at hiding or disposing of them. I am reluctant to resort to force-feeding him…."

"Certainly not!" I said in alarm. I could not answer for the consequences if anyone attempted it.

He waved a despairing hand. "Until he becomes too weak to resist, our options are limited, Phlox. Maybe an old friend such as yourself may be able to talk some sense into him."

Well. I would not be so presumptuous as to claim that the good lieutenant actually regards me as an 'old friend', but I flatter myself that he at least holds me in some respect. Mostly because as an expert tactician himself he recognizes the skill with which I have so often outmaneuvered him, invariably for his own good.

Whether he would accept my help in the current circumstances, however, was more problematic.

"I can but try." I sighed as I rose. I was not feeling particularly optimistic.

My lack of optimism was proved well-founded when I pressed the chime on Lieutenant Reed's door. There was silence from within, but I told myself (I always try to look on the bright side) that this could simply mean he was asleep or taking a shower.

It did not. He was sitting in a chair facing the door, perfectly upright, perfectly still, and wide awake.

My immediate impression was that he had lost weight again. When we retrieved him from the Reptilian ship he had been malnourished, and I had used intravenous fluids to begin restoring at least some of the body mass he had lost. His internal injuries had precluded anything but the gentlest exercise at first, and I had noted some muscular tissue degeneration, but this was inevitable and could soon be reversed when he began to get himself fit again with his usual (often ill-advised) determination. Even intravenous feeding could not counter the ill effects of such a restricted lifestyle, but it had gone some way towards restoring his worryingly poor condition by the time we returned to Earth.

More worrying by far, however, was his body language. His whole demeanor suggested he felt deeply threatened. His face was still, almost expressionless, but I had enough experience to know that he had dug fortifications and was watching from behind them as though awaiting an enemy.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant," I said cheerfully.

"Doctor." His voice was almost as expressionless as his face.

This was usually the point at which, with the average patient, I would indulge in a little small-talk to put them at their ease. There was no point whatsoever in indulging in small-talk with this man.

"With your permission, Lieutenant, I'd like us to have a little talk." I indicated the arm-chair nearest the one in which he was seated. Forcing the issue would achieve exactly the opposite of what I wanted; he should at least be given the option of accepting my company.

After a pause, during which I endured his long, cold stare, he shrugged.

It was clearly as much as I was going to get by way of permission, so I sat down. But instead of launching into conversation – which he was clearly expecting – I simply studied him.

Humans are absurdly uncomfortable being watched without explanation. For all his experience, I knew he was not immune to this reaction. Nevertheless, he said nothing.

I did not leave it long enough to make it appear like a battle, which I had lost. After some six or seven minutes I remarked quietly that he was not making the progress I had hoped for.

Another shrug was my only answer.

"This is not like you, Lieutenant," I went on, keeping my tone neutral. "You are a Starfleet officer. You have a duty to co-operate with the people who are trying to help you, however irksome you may find them. You are fully aware of that."

The ghost of a smile flickered across his face, but it was not a pleasant one. He shrugged yet again.

"Your friends are concerned for you."

To that, no answer. But he rose and walked to the window, and stood looking out. It was raining, and the Bay was half-hidden behind the misty clouds that had drifted in off the ocean.

I was tempted to mention his child; surely that subject would stir him to respond somehow. But something told me he would perceive that as hitting 'below the belt', and if I wanted to retain any of his trust whatsoever I should not do it by antagonizing him.

There were other patients who needed me. Remaining here was achieving nothing except putting further strain on him.

"You have my number if you need it, Lieutenant," I said at last, standing up. "Feel free to use it, day or night." I spoke gently, not wanting him to think I blamed him for his silence.

He still said nothing. His gaze remained fixed on the cloudy bay.

I walked to the door. I hoped I _would_ hear from him, but I feared not, and despite the fact that like most Denobulans I am naturally inclined to optimism I could not shut out a whisper in my mind that said the next thing I was likely to hear was that he had taken drastic action on his own account. All my professional experience was screaming at me that he needed help, and needed it _now_ , but if he would not communicate there was no help I could give him.

If there had been any sound nearby I would not have heard him. As it was, I very nearly did not. His whisper was as soft as a sigh.

"I'm going mad, Phlox."

I stopped, with my hand on the door panel.

Very quietly I turned around.

He had not moved. I was not even sure he knew he had spoken.

"You need to discuss what happened to you," I said, trying to infuse my voice with the enormous compassion I felt for this tortured soul. "You need to talk to someone."

"And who would you suggest, Doctor?" His lifeless gray gaze was fixed on far distance. "Either what I experienced was genuine, or I'm mourning for a delusion. And nobody can tell me which it is. I need to know. If only I could …"

The hopeless longing in his voice told me that he had been far more emotionally involved with this 'experience' than I had suspected. He had told me, back on _Enterprise_ , that he had supposedly spent some months living among a somewhat primitive people, with whom he had found himself on awakening after the event that had been presumed to be a fatal accident. Even then he had been loath to divulge details, probably suspecting that I would dismiss them as the products of a disordered mind. Certainly he had not made any mention of a passionate attachment there, but hearing him now it was impossible to dismiss the possibility that his physical ills were only half of what was afflicting him.

A great deal that had hitherto perplexed me now made perfect sense. He never had done anything by halves; when he played, he played to win, as I had witnessed many a time during basketball sessions on board ship. If he had fallen in love, he would have fallen hard.

But this was certainly not the occasion for that kind of discussion, and I was certainly not the person with whom he would feel comfortable having it. On several occasions over dinner in the Mess Hall we had talked about the absurd Human attitudes to relationships, and at the end of one of these I had remarked somewhat caustically that I had never suspected that he was even more ridiculously narrow-minded than Commander Tucker when it came to the issue of fidelity. In return he had said that he was only glad he was not a Denobulan, as he would never have been able to cope with the complications. (As a matter of fact, having multiple wives with multiple husbands _does_ get a little complicated now and then, but then, it is an almost endless source of just the sort of interest and enjoyment on which Denobulans thrive.)

I decided to take the strictly scientific approach. "Well," I said more briskly, "I have already told the captain – and entered it in my official report – that there are factors in your story for which I have no explanation other than that you actually did go 'somewhere else'."

"Maybe the Reptilians found me," he replied, in the dull tone of one who has rehearsed an argument until they could have recited it in their sleep. "They could have kept me alive … made me believe whatever they wanted."

"Maybe so. But I have managed to make contact with a member of the Xindi scientific community and send him the details of the DNA I extracted from the hairs with which your wounds were stitched. He agreed with me that it was from a quadruped, and the similarities to the equine genome in the Human database suggested that it was something almost identical to an Earth horse. But there is nothing like it on any of the Xindi worlds, and he could imagine no reason for the Reptilians either to have it or to use it for medical purposes."

To begin with I suspect he was hardly listening, still caught up in his own never-ending circle of thought; but by the end I definitely had his attention. I wondered if he realized that his left hand had gone to the mark on his right shoulder.

"The dye used in that mark does not correspond to anything I can discover either," I added, watching the hitherto blank stare sharpen still further. "I will agree, it is entirely _possible_ for the incisions to have been self-inflicted. But I can postulate no circumstances in which you would have been able to perform surgery on yourself of the type that someone carried out quite recently.

"It therefore appears strongly suggestive that you were, indeed, 'somewhere else'."

His grip tightened on the mark until his knuckles stood out white. "Give me your professional opinion in answer to this question, Doctor. Irrespective of anything you know about me or our history aboard _Enterprise_ , but exactly as you would give it in a court of law." His voice slowed, became icy and precise. "Did I or did I not spend time in another world, possibly another universe, during which I received injuries that were consistent with the account I gave you, and which were treated by some unknown person with a substance unknown to any database in this universe?"

I sighed. "Lieutenant, you know I can make no such conclusive statement."

"I didn't ask you for a 'statement', Doctor. I asked you for an 'opinion'."

Regardless of his wording, I knew perfectly well that our history aboard _Enterprise_ would color his interpretation of my response. Nevertheless, I had no right to withhold it from him on that score. "Very well. In every way short of certainty and on the basis of what scientific proof is available, it is my _opinion_ that the weight of probability rests on your having been transported to an unknown place where you received medical attention."

The gleam of life coming back into his face was like sunshine breaking through storm clouds. "That sounded more like a lawyer than a doctor."

"A doctor is obliged to be accurate in his statements, Lieutenant," I replied with mock sternness. "Especially to a court of law."

He nodded. But his first brightening dulled quickly into thoughtfulness, and he turned back and stared out through the window once more.

I suspected it was his way of indicating that the interview was over, and I set my hand to the door control again. However, I still found it difficult to leave, even though to all intents and purposes he seemed to have forgotten my existence.

Hitherto I had addressed him as the officer he still was. In the hierarchy of the ship I outranked him, and I knew he was more comfortable with formal modes of address. But it came to me that whether he understood it or not, it was not a senior officer who could help him now. "Malcolm," I said, "may I give you a piece of advice – as a friend rather than as a doctor?"

It was probably surprise that made him look around. His eyebrows quirked in mild curiosity.

"Talk to someone," I said gently. "I realize how difficult it is for you, but you desperately need to talk."

He shook his head once, with a short, soundless laugh that held no humor whatsoever. "I'm certainly in the right place for that, aren't I?"

"These are trained professionals," I admonished him.

The hint of a smile lingered for a moment, but above it his eyes were cold again. "Thank you for your advice, Doctor. I'll consider it."

He turned back to the window and settled his forehead against it. His eyelids dropped back down. He could not have indicated more clearly that the audience was over.

I knew of old that there was no point whatsoever in pushing him. He had listened, but I had the gravest doubts whether he would act. And so, bidding him goodbye, I left the room.

I was not really surprised when he made no attempt to stop me, but as I walked down the corridor I felt uncharacteristically despondent. He needed to unburden himself to someone, but it was plain that he did not trust the staff; I doubted whether he could even trust me. Possibly one of the other officers from the ship – Commander Tucker in particular – might have had better success, but at this moment none of them were readily available. I could, perhaps, have made contact with Captain Archer, but it was difficult to imagine our reticent Armory Officer choosing his commanding officer as a confidant under any circumstances.

I was somewhat surprised that the captain had not visited him. Normally Archer is a compassionate man, deeply concerned for the welfare of all of his crew, and I had occasionally wondered whether it was difficult for him to deal with the sight of a previously strong man under his command so reduced as Malcolm was now. Naturally the captain had more than enough duties to fill his day, but he had made time to visit Crewman Ramesh during one of his physiotherapy sessions the day before. It was highly unlikely that Mister Reed was unaware of this omission, and knowing in what extremely high regard he holds his Commanding Officer, I could not help but feel that this failure to visit would compound his sense of isolation and disgrace.

That said, the captain had not (to my knowledge) visited Ensign Sato since her baby's birth either. It had been obvious that there was some degree of tension between them on board ship, and it was easy enough to guess that the discovery of the ensign's pregnancy on such a high-risk mission had led to some annoyance on the captain's part. I had noted – with regret, but without surprise – that his previously relaxed command style and easy relations with his crew deteriorated markedly during the search for the Xindi; it was hardly to be expected that he would be able to bear such a burden of responsibility without being affected by it.

So many of the senior officers as well as the crew could be listed as 'casualties', in one form or another, I thought, sighing. Sub-Commander T'Pol had fallen prey to trellium addiction, and Commander Tucker was still suffering from acute depression over the loss of his sister. I had hoped that those two might provide support for one another (my fascination with Human relationships has made me very observant of the small indicators of their pre-mating habits, and Commander Tucker was exhibiting classic signs of interest), but my well-meant ploy of bringing them together by her administering neuropressure to him obviously failed.

T'Pol, whom he had accompanied to Vulcan, had remained there. This in itself was not surprising. After reporting to the High Command on the events of the mission she would doubtless wish to use up some of her accumulated leave and renew her acquaintance with her family, but nevertheless I had not been able to suppress a distinct feeling of disappointment and apprehension at the discovery that he had returned without her, and apparently in poorer spirits than ever.

I would ordinarily have expected him to have remained on Earth now and taken an active interest in his friends' welfare at such a delicate juncture of their lives, but after returning alone from Vulcan he had gone instead to the Jupiter shipyards and seemed more interested in the progress of the repairs to the ship. Doctor Fitzgerald's notes had referenced occasional calls from him, but they were of short duration, and it was all too easy to imagine how frustrating they must have been for him. As he was not normally an insensitive man – quite the opposite – I feared that this withdrawal was a sign of some fresh emotional trauma of his own that he was struggling to cope with by immersing himself in technical matters where he at least had some ability to effect a positive outcome.

It was not only the ship that bore the scars of the mission.

However, just as I turned now to the outer doors of the convalescent home, my spirits took an unexpected turn for the better.


	8. 8: Gomez

Now that we had finally arrived, it must be admitted that I was conscious of last-minute nerves.

It had seemed the perfect solution at the time. Although not much given to speaking of family affairs, Malcolm had on more than one occasion spoken with so much affection of his _tía_ Sherrie that I was certain she was the one person in the world who could help him now.

On my previous visit to him in the sanatorium I had been shocked beyond words. He had been bad aboard _Enterprise_ , but I had expected him to be better. On the contrary, he seemed to be worse – much worse. The weeks that had passed had had no effect on him save to make him draw even deeper into himself, and even I who had flattered myself was a trusted friend had been unable to reach him.

I knew that this was a situation he would not endure for long, and if the doctors thought otherwise they were fools. However, if I was to warn them of what I feared, it might result in his conditions being made so much worse that it would precipitate the inevitable crisis. I therefore resolved that it was up to me to act.

Fortunately Major Matthew Hayes was in a position to obtain for me the loan of a shuttlepod, which was _muy útil_ in transporting Sherrie St Clair from England to San Francisco without any of the tiresome delays inevitable with other methods of transport. I was unsure whether he had as much faith in my idea as I had, but I believed that events would bear me out.

It is true that my first impression of _Seňora_ St Clair was not encouraging. She was older than I had expected, and seemed frail. But although she was clearly shocked by my news, it was only a few moments before she rallied, and gathered herself together to become _muy formidable._ Became, in fact, the aunt whom I would expect such a nephew to have; and now as we walked together into the entrance hall of the convalescent home where he was being housed, she looked around her with a steely determination that said she would see him whoever tried to forbid it.

As a matter of fact I had some anxiety on that score also. If his condition had worsened still further, we might well encounter difficulty. But my anxieties were needless, for even as we entered I saw across the entrance hall the very man who would be able to overrule any objections.

"Ensign! Major!" Doctor Phlox greeted us with every evidence of delight. I had thought he looked burdened, but there was no mistaking the way he bustled towards us. His astonishing blue eyes took in the lady we had brought with us, and I thought that even before I introduced her he had assessed her identity and concluded why she was here.

At a guess, he was the first alien she had ever met face to face. I feared she might be unnerved, but she faced him with quiet composure. "I have seen you on the television," she stated. "You are the Chief Medical Officer on my nephew's ship."

"Indeed, madam." He had probably assumed that she was Malcolm's mother, but made the adjustment without blinking. "And I am more relieved than I can say that you are here."

Her hand went instinctively to her throat. "He–?"

Phlox drew us aside. "His physical injuries are on the mend," he said quietly. "But what he needs now is to talk, and there is no-one here he can trust."

Her chin went up in a way that was so familiar I could have wept. "Then there is now."

She fixed the Denobulan with a stare that would have cowed an Andorian general. "I wish to be taken to my nephew, if you please. And then I wish to take him home."

The doctor blinked. "I doubt if Starfleet would permit…"

"Starfleet have done their worst to him," she cut in. "Now it is time to leave him to someone who has _nothing_ but his best interests at heart!"

This was, perhaps, not entirely just. There was no doubt that but for Doctor Phlox's heroic efforts _Teniente_ Reed would not have survived his first hour aboard _Enterprise_ after his rescue, and the Denobulan had cared devotedly for him ever since. On many, many occasions over the voyage the doctor had dealt ably and well with his most difficult patient's various ills and hurts, and I put a hand out in protest; but Phlox simply patted it in a fatherly way and nodded. "That may be exactly what he needs," he said gravely. "I will go and discuss it with Doctor Fitzgerald."

"And in the meantime, Ma'am, I'm sure you're anxious to see him for yourself." _Comandante_ Hayes had been silent till now, but although it was to the _seňora_ he spoke, I saw that he too was looking a little apologetically at the doctor; he probably knew almost as well as I did that Malcolm owed his life to Phlox many times over.

Bless him, I was sure that Phlox understood the situation perfectly well, and he was always compassionate of those in pain. He shooed us away in the direction of the _teniente_ 's room, and the last I saw of him was the tail of the long coat he was wearing whisking away around a nearby corner; no doubt he was indeed on his way to the office of Doctor Fitzgerald – presumably the man in charge of Malcolm's treatment here.

"Please." _Tía_ St Clair suddenly seemed close to breaking point. "My nephew. Please, take me to my nephew."

There was nothing more to wait for. I already knew the directions. And with _Comandante_ Hayes alongside and doubtless ready to smooth over any ruffled feelings caused by our haste, I led her quickly to the _patrón_ 's room.

I did not ring the chime; this was too important for _formalidades tan absurdo._ Disregarding Matthew's look of mildly scandalised reproach, I hit the emergency entry button beside the door.

It seemed that for all her Britishness, Sherrie entirely agreed with me. She sailed through the door like a compact, lavender-scented warship, all its guns bristling against those who would wish harm on the man she had come to protect.

He was standing by the window. I saw his head come around in startlement at the unexpected arrival. For one moment I think he simply did not recognise her.

It is not in the least true that I have no tact. I was turning around even before _Comandante_ Hayes' fingers touched my arm. Nevertheless I knew that even before the door closed behind us Malcolm was kneeling before her, his face buried in her skirt; and as we strode down the corridor I was conscious of a deep and wonderful sense of satisfaction.

" _¡Excelente_!" I said, tucking my arm through Matthew's before I could think better of it, and finding (when I belatedly realised this) that he was by no means ready to let it go again. "Now we have the _teniente_ sorted out, let us find Hoshi and rescue her also."

"Emilia," he said, in the very same voice my father used to use when he found I had stolen my brother's toy gun yet again and was out stalking pretend enemies in the orange grove instead of attending to my lessons.

I tossed my head, letting him know very firmly that having my arm tucked through his was not at all the same thing as being prepared to let him step into my _patrón_ 's shoes and give me orders. "We will leave the shuttlepod here. If the worst comes to the worst we can have the rest of Hoshi's things sent on. We are only going to England, after all. She can buy whatever she needs when she gets there."

"Emilia," he said again.

By this time we were out in the sunshine again, and I merely pointed him towards the gates. "If you are afraid, of course, I can do this by myself," I told him sweetly.

Personally I think that swatting my bottom was a great piece of impertinence on his part. I was still telling him so when we boarded the transport for the city centre. Fortunately he had steered us to sit in the seats at the very back, so he was able to silence me in a very agreeable fashion indeed without causing widespread scandal among the other occupants of the bus.

When he finally released me I was content that he was not after all going to attempt to dissuade me. He might have his doubts, but he would remain my 'wing man' as the American saying has it, seeing to it that I came to no harm.

Not that I was not exasperated all over again by his obvious belief that I needed any such thing, but there was still something very comforting and masculine about his feeling protectiveness of me, and so I was prepared to put up with it. Enjoy it, even, just a very little, but I certainly was not going to admit _that._

=/\=

 _Seňora_ Sato was indeed not pleased to see us again.

I thought at first that she was going to refuse to admit us, but fortunately Hoshi overheard our voices and ordered that we should be allowed to enter.

She had apparently just come out of the shower. She was still wrapped in a towel, her hair up in a turban, and if I was not mistaken wore the expression of one who sees hope of a siege being lifted.

Of the _bebé_ there was no sign; presumably he was lying down having a sleep. His mother, however, greeted us with so much warmth one would have thought she had not seen us for a month rather than less than twenty-four hours.

I have never seen the use of beating around the bush, and saw no reason to begin now. Having politely refused the offer of refreshments, I launched directly into what I had come to say. "Hoshi, we have just come from visiting Malcolm."

Seated on the sofa opposite, _Seňora_ Sato stiffened still further.

Hoshi, however, leaned forward eagerly. "I've been so worried about him, but I ... I didn't know whether me visiting him again so soon was the right thing – he seemed so upset, I was scared it was ... is he better?"

I shook my head. "No, he is not. And I tell you, Hoshi, if he stays in that place he never will be. That is why the _Comandante_ and I have been all the way to England to fetch his _tía_ St Clair, so that he can go home and rest and recover."

She looked aghast. "Home? To England?"

"Yes," I said brutally. "Because England is his home. And because now more than ever before he needs to be loved rather than treated like a sick animal in a veterinary surgery."

If Hoshi was horrified by the development, her mother was openly delighted. "You see, even for the English, family is the most important thing!"

I rounded on her. "With respect, _Seňora_ : if you wish to hold up the Reeds as an example of family affection, know that it is his _aunt_ who has come to him in his time of need – not his _padre_ , not even his _madre, Dios la perdona!_

"Families – _good_ families – are a gift from the Good God. But I tell you, it is not necessary to have been born to the same parents to feel for another person as if they were your own flesh and blood. Malcolm Reed is to me the elder brother I never had, and I will do anything I can, _anything_ , to help him. And if that means that I take him back to England for a while, then that is what I will do. Because everyone, at some point in their lives, needs sanctuary." I looked straight at Hoshi. " _Everyone._ "

She was as white as the towels that wrapped her. "But what about Charles?"

"If Charles is to still _have_ a father by this time next week, Hoshi, then we have no choice. You have a choice; Malcolm has none. He is past choosing. Therefore we who love him have made that choice for him.

"He is going home."

"Then you can do the same." _Seňora_ Sato spoke into the quiet, looking at her daughter. "You refused to go because it would mean leaving him behind. Now you have found it will not. He will not even be here any longer, he will have left America and you do not even know if he will ever come back again."

"On the contrary, Ma'am." Matthew spoke respectfully but firmly. "I know the Lieutenant. He _will_ be back, stronger than ever. He needs time out, it's true, but that's by no means the same as giving up. A man's only beaten when he stays on the canvas."

"He is not fit for fatherhood!" she spat. "A sick man, not even able to perform his duties as a Starfleet officer – you are better off without him, Hoshi. We will look after you and we will look after your son, and in six months' time you will wonder why you were worried."

Even the _Comandante_ 's hand on my arm could not hold me back. "In six months, perhaps, Malcolm will be fit for duty again. Fit for fatherhood, fit for anything! But in the meantime, yes, he is a sick man, a very sick man. And now is the time for those whom he would have given every last drop of his heart's blood to protect to step forward and repay him.

"I am one of those. I was privileged to call Malcolm Reed my Commanding Officer, and even more so to call him my friend. I am not going to desert him in his hour of need."

I turned to Hoshi. "You are my _amiga_ too, Hoshi, and I am not sitting in judgement on you. You have a son, and he must be your first priority; for what it matters, I will support you in whatever you choose to do for the best.

"The only thing I will ask you is that you do not forget Malcolm. Because Charles is his son too. Do not punish him for what has happened to him, _¡te le ruego!_ "

She stood up, her eyes flashing. I thought she was about to tell me to leave, and I think her _madre_ thought the same, but both of us were quite wrong.

Without a word, she walked into the bedroom and emerged with her son, still soundly sleeping. "Take me to him. Now."

"Hoshi!" cried her mother.

"No, Mother!" But for the fear of disturbing little Charles, I think she would have shouted it aloud. "I don't know whether things will work out between me and Malcolm. I don't know how he feels about me, about us, about anything. But I'm not going to walk away from him until he tells me he wants me to."

She glanced at me almost shyly. "Malcolm's aunt–"

"Will accept you as though you were her own flesh and blood." I made the promise as though this woman who was all but a stranger to me had given me _carte blanche_ to act in her name, but even Matthew did not protest. "But you will have to get dressed first! Then at least put together some spare clothes. For you and for the _bebé_ – it is not as warm as this, in England."

I think she had actually forgotten she was still clad only in a towel. With a flying grin, she handed Charles to me and went back into her bedroom.

It was hardly to be expected that _Seňora_ Sato would accept her daughter's decision readily. Throughout the few minutes that followed, while Hoshi dried herself, dressed and packed her Starfleet carryall with the clothes she had brought and all the things she would need for the baby, her mother carried out a verbal bombardment of what sounded like pleas and reproaches, all of them in Japanese – presumably so that I should have no opportunity to counter the arguments she advanced. Hoshi ignored these for the most part, but now and again rapped out retorts that sounded like bursts of machine gun fire.

Naturally this highly unsatisfactory state of affairs was deemed to be entirely my fault. From time to time ferocious, tearful glares in my direction told that I was being denounced as a mischief-maker and a destroyer of families. I said nothing, but I was aware of Matthew folding his arms. It was doubtful whether he understood any more Japanese than I did, but there was no doubt at all that he drew the same conclusions as to what was being said, and resented them on my behalf.

Finally Hoshi was ready. Clearly she did not wish to wake Charles by dressing him, but she wrapped him warmly in a blanket and now tucked him, still sleeping soundly, into the travelling sling in which she carried him.

Her mother, it seemed, had conceded defeat. She stood, a little perplexed, a little shrunken, and entirely furious, and watched Matthew pick up the loaded carryall. "And so these – these _friends_ of yours are more important to you than your own family," she said finally, returning to English.

"Not 'more', Mother. They are a family to me – just like my own family. And families depend on one another, trust one another." She settled the sling into place, and for a moment it seemed that she wished to go to _Seňora_ Sato for a kiss or an embrace, but it was plain that if she did so she would be repulsed. "I have to go. For Charles' sake, as well as for mine. I hope you can forgive me, _Okaasan._ "

She received no reply. Possibly she expected none, for after a moment she sorrowfully went to the door, which by that time Matthew was holding open for her.

"I am sorry, _Seňora_ ," I said, looking back for a moment before I followed her. "But your daughter is a woman of honour. I hope some day you will realise that."

If that was ever to happen, however, it would not do so today. Her reply was once again unintelligible to me, but the venom in it was plain.

I closed the door behind me quietly. It was not an occasion for rejoicing; none of this was good. Nevertheless it seemed to me that I had helped to salvage something from what could so easily have been the ruination of at least three lives.

It was not salvation yet.

But maybe, at the very least, it was hope.


	9. 9: St Clair

The baby.

I had not paid it so much attention, at first; all of that was focussed on the young woman who walked in, her whole bearing one of conscious and hard-held courage.

I knew her face from the television broadcasts of course: Ensign Hoshi Sato, _Enterprise_ 's communications officer. She was both smaller and much prettier than the official Starfleet photographs had made her appear, and her manners were exquisite.

Malcolm was sitting in a chair in the furthest corner of the room. He didn't speak or move when she came in, though I was quite sure that it was an enormous effort of will for him to stay still and silent; even now I didn't know what on earth he would do if he moved, but he had promised me that if she agreed to come here, he wouldn't put any pressure on her to fall in with the rest of our plans. I didn't miss the quick glance she darted in his direction, but I could hardly blame her for that.

"I believe from Ensign Gomez here that you're Malcolm's aunt," she said a little hesitantly, holding out her hand for a formal handshake. "I'm pleased to meet you."

"And I you, my dear. I only hope Emilia has not scared you senseless on the way here, telling you what a terrible, silly old woman I am." She was so pale and worn-looking (that dreadful Expanse business, with a baby on top of everything else!); I patted her hand. "I want to take you and Malcolm home to my house, for a little break right away from everything, so both of you can rest and talk if and when you want to. It's right out in the country, nobody ever comes near us. You can both have your own rooms, and come and go just as you please.

"And rest assured, nobody is going to force you to do anything at all you don't want to. If you change your mind and decide you'd like to go to your mother after all, then Mr Hobbs in the village will drive you to the train station straight away. But I should mention that the weather forecast was looking very good, and we may even have sunshine for most of the week. Though I won't guarantee it will hold till the weekend," I added hastily, unwilling to perjure myself on behalf of the always-temperamental English climate.

"Now, does that sound appealing?"

There was a short silence. Then this was followed by the distinct sound of something like a stifled cough from the direction of the chair in the corner, and next second everyone in the room was laughing.

"Oh, dear, Eddie used to tell me I do rattle on occasionally!" I pinkened, realising the habit was still with me, though in fairness to myself it usually happened when I was over-anxious. But it did my heart so much good to see that even Malcolm was laughing aloud, and Emilia came over and gave me a hug and said that she would bring her mother to meet me one day, which I was not at all sure was relevant to the matter in hand but seemed to be meant as a compliment.

Even Ensign Sato was smiling. "How could I possibly refuse?" She looked down at the little well-wrapped bundle in the sling across her chest. "Your grand-nephew's waking up. Would you like to meet him?"

The _baby_. It would have been the height of ill-manners to push for a view before being asked, but I had been conscious from the very start of just the smallest glimpse of a tiny, curled, mittened fist among the folds of the shawl he was wrapped in.

I really am a silly old woman. I blinked away a few ridiculous tears as I finally gazed down at the infant, who did indeed seem to be just waking up from a sound sleep.

Facially he seemed to favour his mother, but his father's frown crumpled his little countenance as he yawned and stretched. His unfocused eyes were dark blue, as I believe those of most babies are.

I glanced across at Malcolm, who was still in the chair, as tense as though he was tied in it. "Oh, my dear. He's absolutely adorable. You must be so proud of him."

"I've never been prouder of anything in my life."

Even to me his reply was full of ambiguous shades. Hoshi, who had not looked at him again after that first assessing glance, now turned to him with a gentle smile. "Well, don't you want to hold your son?"

There was no doubt about that. He stood up at once, but his gaze flicked between her and the child, full of confusion and nervousness. My heart ached for him.

Major Hayes cleared his throat. "I guess this is as good a time as any to make us all a cup of coffee."

Emilia took the hint at once. " _Excelente_!" she beamed. "And _Seňora_ St Clair and I will go out and buy some cake. They will have some in the shop, which will do _sólo por hoy."_

I was not at all sure what _solo por hoy_ meant, and I abhor shop-bought cake in the general way, but I consoled myself that I am thought by the village bakers to make a very tolerable fruit scone, and there would be plenty of time to make amends for this one unavoidable misfortune.

Malcolm, poor boy, was now looking as though he was being abandoned to the lions. I pitied him more than ever, but he was going to have to draw on the courage of which he had never had less than enough. And that, I thought, might yet be his salvation; it was only when he was not being called on to be brave that he began to question his own courage.

Emilia, I think, felt the same way. She gave him this strange little _moue_ , wrinkling up her nose, and then took my arm and led me out of the room. Major Hayes called warningly that we should not be too long about choosing which cake to buy, but he was not slow about taking himself into the little kitchen, where at a guess he would take a quite unconscionable length of time about finding the ingredients for a simple cup of coffee.

"Poor _Patrón_! Now he will have to do the thing he hates worst of all – talk!" She gurgled with laughter, but sobered quickly. " _En verdad_ , _Seňora_ , we owe you a great debt. But for your generosity, I do not know what we should have done."

"Nonsense!" I said robustly. "Where else should he go, I'd like to know? And Ensign Sato and the baby are more than welcome, for as long as she chooses to stay. Please make sure she understands that."

"I will tell her," she nodded, looking relieved. "Time is what they need – what both of them need. Time, and rest."

"They shall have both at my house. And Mrs Hobbs is the retired District Nurse, and has _eight_ grandchildren of her own, so we shall ask her to keep an eye on Charles' health for the duration of his stay." Mentally I made a note to enlist Sarah Hobbs' redoubtable help to keep my visitors' identities a secret; the Reeds' place was still, I had heard, intermittently under surveillance in case their injured son came home. Not that I intended for a moment to forego the delight of showing off my grand-nephew around the village, but Sarah with her seemingly inexhaustible supply of cousins, nieces, nephews and godchildren was more than capable of 'discovering' a remote relation who just happened to be visiting with a baby the two of us were taking for an airing.

I could also rely on her to produce whatever might be needed for the infant's immediate welfare, such as the loan of a cot during his stay. Knowing her, the first suggestion of Charles' existence would have her materialising on the doorstep with whatever she thought we might stand in need of, and the prospect of keeping him hidden in plain view would appeal irresistibly to her occasionally reprehensible sense of humour.

The thought of the situation at home brought it to me sharply that I was, in fact, plotting to bring my nephew and his fellow-officer and their son to my house and keep them there in absolute secrecy, while his own parents mere miles away remained in ignorance. Normally I felt little warmer than contempt for my brother, while my feelings for his wife veered between mild scorn and pity as the occasion demanded, but even I realised that what I was planning was extremely serious. This did not worry me in the least on my own account – being perpetually expelled from Stuart's world if my perfidy was discovered was a state I would have welcomed with open arms – but whatever my brother might be, Mary would be cut to the quick by it if she found out. As spineless as I had often thought her, I could not justify that.

Was it possible to contrive some way to bring her in secrecy to see her grandson? I truly did not know. It was rare to see her in the village alone (especially since the business of the Expanse, Stuart had appointed himself her constant guard), but she had never been in the habit of paying social calls on me. It would take some ingenuity to devise a reason that would neither make that wretched husband of hers suspicious nor inspire him to accompany her.

The thought did occur to me that the sight of his grandson might actually shake my brother out of his stupidity, but he'd always made such a virtue out of his idiotic obstinacy that I could put no reliance on this idea. Best, at any rate, not to put it to the test if I could help it. It shamed me to admit it, even to myself, but the man was such a morass of ridiculous prejudices that he might even hold it as yet another cause of blame in his son that he'd fathered a child on a junior officer – and worse still (from his point of view), a woman of Asian origin.

In the meantime, we had reached the shop, presumably set up to cater for visitors. Prominently displayed on several shelves were items that were labelled 'cake', though as I inspected them I thought somewhat uncharitably that this was not among the terms that would have been applied to them at the village's annual baking competition.

A confection that was vilely self-aggrandising in calling itself a Victoria Sponge seemed to be the least of all the available evils, though it was not only oozing a disgraceful amount of buttercream on top of the jam filling, but had an even thicker layer of the same on top. Mrs Phillips, the President of the local WI, would have had the perpetrator of such a monstrosity burnt at the stake, though it had to be admitted that she was known for her extreme views on such delicate subjects.

Emilia grinned at the sight of my expression. "Malcolm will eat it, you will see, _Seňora_ ," she said blithely, entering her credit details into the self-service till. "When you are aboard a starship for three years, you get used to eating what is available."

"Life aboard _Enterprise_ must have been even more gruelling than I had imagined," I replied drily as we carried the offending article back towards the wing of the main building that housed my nephew's room. "I had thought he was serving on a starship, not a prison ship."

" _Demonios_ , it is not quite that bad!" She laughed, unoffended. "Actually, Chef is an excellent cook. He makes the most of what he has available. It is his misfortune that much on a starship has to be recycled – including what we eat."

"Please. Spare me the details."

She nodded, though her eyes twinkled. "Maybe we should not be in such a hurry to go back," she whispered conspiratorially. "Give them a little longer..."

"I think they have had _quite_ long enough." I looked at her severely, which merely amused her further. "For a tactical officer, Ensign, you appear to have a very limited understanding of strategy and tactics."

This entertained her enormously. She was still chortling quite immoderately when we arrived back at our destination.


	10. 10: Reed

I honestly hadn't thought she'd come.

She'd visited a few times, each more uncomfortable than the last. If truth be told, I'd been preparing myself to hear that she'd thought things over and decided the whole thing had been a colossal mistake, and that she was going to take my son as far away as possible from the psycho who'd fathered him, and keep him there for his own safety.

The whole brutal simplicity of our relationship aboard _Enterprise_ was gone. I could relate to her as a beautiful woman, and God knows she still was one, but her identity had changed. She was a mother, the mother of my son. Most new fathers have had nine months to get used to the idea; I'd had scraps of a few weeks, the bits and pieces when I'd been a) conscious and b) sane. For days after I'd regained consciousness I'd believed she was dead. Then I found out she wasn't, and in my relatively lucid hours I spent an inordinate amount of time devising ghastly, lingering ends for whoever had snatched her away from me in the most emphatic way possible. Then I'd finally discovered the baby she was expecting (still hanging on, however improbably given the circumstances) was mine.

Frankly, that thought had never even occurred to me. I was simply not – as far as I knew – destined for fatherhood. With a relationship history like mine, the prospect of any woman ever even contemplating uniting my disastrous DNA with hers had seemed on the 'absolutely ludicrous' end of the improbability scale.

But Hoshi had made that choice. I didn't suppose for a moment she'd set out deliberately to get pregnant, but I was under no illusions: she could have got rid of it if she'd wanted to. With me MIA and presumed dead, it would have made her life a heck of a lot simpler. Given the way the captain's temper had been shredding, I couldn't imagine he'd been pleased by the development either; though he must have accepted it eventually, I was willing to bet he'd have been a heck of a lot happier if she'd had a termination.

But she hadn't.

That in itself had engendered all sorts of questions I hadn't yet had the opportunity (or the courage) to ask. But try as I might to tell myself that it didn't necessarily have anything to do with what she felt about me personally, hope kept creeping in. If she didn't feel anything for me, she damn well wouldn't have wanted a child to remember me by, would she?

Would she?

Yes, all that was going to have to be part of The Conversation too – The Conversation about what had happened and where the heck we were going from here. Whenever and wherever we finally got around to having it. And given my less-than-stellar abilities on the conversational front at the best of times, I wasn't looking forward to _that._

The whole thing had left me as edgy as – to borrow one of Trip's colourful similes – 'a steer in a steakhouse'. It wasn't just a case of what I felt for her; it takes two to tango. _Did_ she feel anything for me, and if so, what? She'd seen me at one of the lowest points in my existence, a raving lunatic hiding under a bed in Sickbay; a long bloody fall from the Tactical Officer of Starfleet's flagship whom she'd taken to her bed. Had she regretted it then? Did she regret it now?

Was what we had between us enough to found a stable relationship on – the sort of relationship that would provide a nurturing family environment for a child? None of this had mattered back in the Expanse; from the start of the voyage I for one sedulously avoided any thought at all of the future, and making plans of this magnitude would have seemed like the worst possible form of tempting fate, even if the thought had occurred to me that Hoshi was interested in anything more than a fling.

But fate had made the decision for her. She'd found herself pregnant by a man everyone believed was dead, and she'd decided to have the baby anyway.

I'd thought about parenthood sometimes when I was with Jessa. I thought she'd have made a bloody wonderful mother, and it saddened me sometimes that being faithful to me meant she'd probably never conceive. I didn't have any way of knowing if there was any chance that our DNA would be compatible; I thought on the whole the chances were pretty remote. I don't think she took any precautions – she never mentioned it. Probably she thought nothing would happen anyway. Most of the women in the village had multiple partners, which gave them a better chance of conceiving, but then the men didn't see that as anything to make an issue of. I, on the other hand, however I might have wished for her sake that she use her new-found sexual confidence to hand out invitations to men who'd suddenly noticed she was actually a very attractive young woman (yes, I had noticed the looks), would probably have taken violent exception to anyone who'd accepted.

It hadn't happened, anyway. At least as far as I knew. Though towards the end I wondered vaguely once or twice whether her menstrual courses were often this far adrift, I put it down to stress making her late – and it wasn't really the sort of thing you waste time asking about when you're facing a battle for not only your life but a whole way of existence for thousands of people who'll face effective extinction if you lose. If she'd had anything to tell me, she'd have said, wouldn't she? So I was hardly going to ask, not when she must obviously have wondered so often whether she was doomed to be like that poor young lass Tyanna who seemed fated never to be a mother. It would just have been rubbing her face in it.

But it had happened with Hoshi. And now I stood opposite her, with the baby in her arms just waking up and making these enchanting little grumpy noises. The baby, whom I'd chosen – at her invitation – to call Charles, for pretty obvious reasons. Her baby. My baby. _Our_ baby.

I _still_ couldn't get my head around it.

She was looking absurdly nervous. Bloody hell, if she was nervous, what did she think _I_ was?

The sounds of displeasure from little Charles increased in volume.

"Reminds me of you when the targeting scanners go offline," she said with a slightly nervous giggle.

And with that, suddenly I recognised her again. It had been our fourth night together before she'd actually had the confidence to make a joke about weapons, and she'd giggled exactly like that.

I actually found myself grinning at the memory, and watched relief creep into her eyes; her whole body relaxed. "I – I'm supposed to be holding him," I pointed out. I'd held him before, of course, but it wasn't something I could imagine myself getting tired of in a hurry.

"You'll regret it if you do." Her mouth quirked wryly.

I realised after a startled moment that my reprobate offspring had celebrated waking up by exercising his bowels, but manly pride insisted I bluff it out. "I can change him, can't I?" I said defiantly.

One of her eyebrows lifted in a way unpleasantly reminiscent of T'Pol's. "Have you ever changed a baby's nappy?"

"No – but shouldn't I learn?"

No reply to that, but I thought she looked approving as she handed Charles over to me; me doing my damnedest to handle him as though I'd spent half my life holding babies, when I could count on the fingers of my thumb the number of times I'd been unable to extricate myself from doing any such thing with any other baby but this one.

Obviously he had to be put on a flat surface. I laid him cautiously and carefully on the sofa, and took a preliminary survey of what he was dressed in. I'd felt less nervous confronted by the prospect of disarming that bloody Romulan mine attached to _Enterprise_ 's hull.

I eased him clumsily out of his coat and dungarees. Underneath these he was wearing a jumper – he didn't like having that eased over his head, for all the care I took to keep it away from his face as I did so – and then he was down to a vest, which buttoned over his nappy. It was now all too clear even to me that the latter needed changing fairly urgently.

Obviously nappy changing was a duty I expected to share, but I'd sort of hoped to ease in at the shallow end first. I mean, just a wet one. As I apprehensively peeled back the tapes, the full aroma of what was within escaped.

Bloody hell. It was only surprising it hadn't set the fire alarm off.

Hoshi had produced the necessary paraphernalia from the bag she'd brought. I knew as well as if she'd shouted it aloud that she was just waiting for me to chicken out and hand the job over to her.

 _Reeds don't quit._

He hadn't got anything I hadn't, so it was just a case of making sure it was all clean and dry, wasn't it?

I used the nappy as best I could to get the worst of the disaster area cleared, then resolutely reached for the wipes. I suspected that if this had been anyone else's baby my guts would have been fighting for the exit by now, but although there didn't seem to be enough saliva in my mouth to account for how much I was swallowing, I pressed on with the job in hand. This was my son, _my son_ , and I was going to make him comfortable and get him dressed again, and maybe after that I'd spend half an hour hanging out of the window to recharge my oxygen tanks, but for now it was just 'get on with it'.

Pride, they say, goes before a fall. I was just fumbling the poppers shut on his dungarees again and congratulating myself on a job well done when I realised I'd put his jumper on back to front.

"Don't worry about it," said Hoshi, smiling. "He'll probably need changing anyway after he's had a feed. He dribbles a bit sometimes."

Feed... I glanced wildly at the bag. There didn't seem to be any bottles in it.

I glanced even more wildly at the door to the kitchen. Hayes was taking his own sweet bloody time with that coffee, but now I'd have been grateful to be told he'd gone to Brazil to fetch some.

Hoshi looked around at the sofa. "Sit down in the corner and get comfortable."

"Yes, Ensign," I muttered. I was a bit bewildered by this turn of events, as she surely wasn't suggesting _I_ had the wherewithal to feed a baby. Perhaps she was still going to produce a bottle from somewhere after all...

However, she didn't. She organised me to her satisfaction, placed a few strategic cushions and then, carrying Charles, she nestled down lying half-across me. Then, with the minimum of fuss, she unfastened her blouse and got on with the feeding.

I could only be glad that nobody was on hand to ask stupid questions about how I was feeling. The whole thing was so ... so...

I put my arm around her, at first as tentatively as though she were made of glass. Finding that it was not resented – in fact, it actually seemed to be welcomed – I tightened my grip a bit. She settled into the curve of my arm, resting her head against my chest, and watched as with just the knuckle of my free hand I stroked the baby's busily working cheek. It was the softest thing I had ever felt.

The rest of the universe had ceased to exist. There were just the three of us, in our own perfect, private little world.

Something changed in me, in that moment. A wound, a wound I'd lived with for so long that the misery of it was simply part of my psyche, no longer gaped. Stealing around me and through me like the warmth of a blazing log fire after a forced march through a killing cold was a sense of belonging – truly belonging; of having come home, without ever having realised till now that I had none.

I was holding a woman who'd cared enough about me to carry my child, even when I'd been declared dead and she faced the grim prospect of rearing him alone. I was watching her feed him, watching him thrive and grow strong.

Utter and

Absolute

Magic.


	11. 11: Sato

I couldn't believe it.

I couldn't believe that after all this time we were finally together, me lying in Malcolm's arms while I suckled our baby.

Every now and then I stole glances up at him. He was still, rapt, watching Charles' blissful expression with a look I'd never seen on his face before. Usually his expression is hard to read; even during our affair, I knew that I was only being allowed part way into the depths of a complex man. Now, for the first time, his soul stood in his eyes.

I wished that _Okaasan_ could have seen it. Maybe then she would have believed in him, have understood why I wanted to be a part of his life – wanted our son to have him for a father.

But I knew that Em and Aunt Sherrie would not be gone much longer – and despite Matthew's tact in lingering in the kitchen, our time alone was limited. There was something important I needed to say, now, while those formidable defenses of his were down; and I had to get it absolutely right, because the wrong words now could do irreparable damage.

"Malcolm," I said softly, resting the tip of my fingers against his cheek-bone.

His gaze shortened to take me in. He didn't speak, but his eyebrows lifted a little in mute inquiry.

I took a deep breath. I'd rehearsed this so often – now I could only hope that I'd chosen words that could get through to him and be what he needed to hear.

"Malcolm, I know… I know you've been through a tough time. I know bad things must have happened to you and you're not ready to talk about them yet. I just want you to know I'm here for you, that I don't mind waiting till you are ready.

"I love you. I know it's not going to be easy, things have changed and … and we've got a lot of talking to do when the time's right. But I want this to work. I want us to be part of your life. If that's what _you_ want."

There was a little silence, broken only by the sound of Charles' contented snuffling.

That was okay. I didn't want a facile answer. I wanted something he'd thought about, something he meant.

Finally he spoke, very low-voiced. "Hoshi, it's … it's going to take a while. But I want to talk, I want to tell you everything. I'm just … scared."

Malcolm Reed, the ship's resident stiff-upper-lipped Brit, admitting to being _scared?_ I held my breath.

"If you want the truth, I'm bloody terrified," he went on, now hardly louder than a whisper. His free hand stroked tentatively over my hair. "Terrified of losing you, of losing everything. There's so much I'm still not sure of. Me, you … everything.

"I wanted to be so much, wanted to be … be a man perhaps you could be proud of. Now, I've … I've lost so much. I don't want to lose you and Charles as well."

He smiled sadly. "I sound like a complete selfish bastard, don't I? But I want to _give_ as well, Hoshi. I want to make you happy you had my son. I want to give you all the help and support you need. And it's all come just when I'm … well, I'm not who I was when I stepped into that shuttlepod.

"The one thing that scares me – more than anything else – is that you may not … may not be able to feel the same way about me now. Because I the last thing I want on this earth is for you to be sorry you ever met me."

How it must hurt him to admit to all this. He'd always been so strong, the protector who made me feel safe when I was with him; now it was he who needed help. I caught his hand and kissed it gently. "I'm here for you, Malcolm. I'll be with you, I promise.

"We _will_ make it through this."

Unease flickered in his face. "I'll try, Hoshi."

I wanted to banish it, wanted to reach him again. The words gave me the key. I pretended to punch him lightly in the nose, and made my voice portentous. "Do, or do not, Malcolm Reed. There is no 'try'."

Amusement lit his face. I knew how he loved those terrible old sci-fi movies; Trip had told me how the two of them would watch them for hours on end during their own private 'movie nights', laughing themselves into fits over the engine designs and the staged fights.

It wasn't possible for him to kiss me; he hadn't even tried to do so since we returned to Earth, but now he touched one fingertip to his lips and then to mine. "If anyone can save me, you can," he said softly.

It wasn't passion – I thought passion was beyond him right now, even if I'd been in any shape to accept it – but it was something to hold on to, something more than I'd had when I came here. Something that gave me faith that my superficially insane decision to risk everything on a journey to England hadn't been the wrong one.

We had a long, difficult road ahead of us. But at least I knew now that he wanted us to at least try to travel it together.


	12. 12: Hayes

I suppose I should've been warned by the fact that everything was going so smoothly.

It's an old adage that 'when everything's coming your way, it means you're on the wrong side of the freeway', and that was borne out about half an hour after we'd all settled down to talk over the cake and coffee.

When the door chime sounded, I thought it was one of the doctors coming on 'rounds' to make sure we weren't tiring the patient too much. At a guess Malcolm thought so too, because he looked up from tentatively tickling little Charles' belly on the rug and nodded to me to admit whoever it was – I being the closest to the door right then.

If this had been an ordinary hospital, the lack of uniform would have alerted me at once, even before I had time to recognize her. But before the door was even properly open she pushed past me and strode into the room.

Personally, I'd have thought the scene before her would have melted a heart of stone. Two obviously very proud parents, kneeling on either side of their son and giving him lots of loving attention, which he was just as obviously enjoying every minute of. Emilia and Sherrie were on the sofa, watching, and wearing the cute smiles that women get when they're thinking all their plans are working out.

It was clear, however, that Mrs Sato wasn't buying any of it.

Even before Hoshi had time to ask any of the questions you _would_ ask in the circumstances – such as what the hell she was doing here, for one – her mother marched forward, homed in on Malcolm and without so much as a word of introduction accused him of brainwashing her daughter into submitting to his advances and then persuading her to abandon her family. "If you have any feeling for her, you will let her come home," she railed at him. "To her family, where she belongs!

"She is young and she has made a foolish mistake. I am willing to let bygones be bygones. She and the child can come home with me now and no more will be said.

"She claims you are a man of honor. Now prove it to me. You have dishonored our daughter, let that be enough. At least now have the manhood to let her salvage something from her life!"

When she first came in, of course, he didn't even know who she was, though I'll guess he caught on fast enough. I think he was simply too amazed to react at once, though as she ranted about him 'dishonoring' Hoshi, what little blood there was in his face drained out of it, leaving it a mask of fury.

Hoshi started to scramble to her feet and collided with Em, who had jumped up at the same time. I pulled my wits together and put out an arm, meaning to drag Mrs Sato out of the room and give her a talking-to in the corridor outside; I had some sympathy with her situation, but this was not the way to go about fixing anything.

But none of us were as quick off the mark as Ms St Clair.

She surged to her feet like one of the old nuclear submarines breaching. Her previously good-humored face had lost any trace of a smile, and in it her eyes blazed cold blue fire. "How _dare_ you!" she boomed.

Hoshi's mother turned her glare on her, but might as well have glared at a Klingon battleship. "You are this man's mother?"

"I am his _aunt_ ," Sherrie replied with a glacial politeness utterly at odds with her glittering gaze. "And although I am sure that you are acting with the best of intentions, permit me to point out that not only have you completely mistaken my nephew's character and traduced your own daughter's intelligence, but that I find your manners abominable!"

"His mother – where is _she_ then? I hope she is proud of her fine son!"

"His mother is _enormously_ proud of him," came the quiet, forceful answer. "And both she and I have absolute confidence that despite whatever insulting accusations you may see fit to level at him, Malcolm Reed is far from the type of man who would _brainwash_ any woman into acting in a way contrary to the best standards in which she has been raised!

"I can understand that you are profoundly upset and shocked, but I would have hoped you could at least be reasonable enough to make the acquaintance of my nephew before forcing your way into his room to insult both him and your daughter. You can gain nothing by such conduct, and surely–" she gestured to the baby, whom Hoshi had gathered up protectively as he started to whimper, scared by the raised voices – "it must be obvious how much you have to lose by it."

Hoshi was on her feet by then, and had her mouth open to add something, but a touch on her arm stopped her. With obvious pain, Reed was levering himself up to stand beside her.

I think that if his aunt hadn't gotten in first he'd have let his unwanted visitor have both barrels. As it was, it had given him time to get hold of his temper and remember that however insulted he might be, he was still (technically at least) an English gentleman. "I don't know how the hell you got in here," he said in arctic tones as he finally straightened up, "but before you leave I'd like to make a few things clear.

"One: your daughter is a grown woman and able to make her own decisions. When you accuse me of 'brainwashing' her you insult her intelligence, which I'd have thought _you_ at least would hold in the regard it deserves.

"Two: I did no 'persuading'. Her choices have been, and still are, entirely her own. If she chooses to go with you I will respect that choice. If she chooses to stay with me, rest assured I will make every effort to ensure she never has cause to regret it.

"Three: I have done _nothing_ that I regard as 'dishonourable' towards Hoshi. I hold her in the highest respect and esteem, and have done since the first day I met her!

"So I suggest that unless you moderate your tone towards her, you leave, _right now_. Because I am not going to allow you to stand there and insult her for one minute more!"

"Amen!" said his aunt forcefully.

" _¡_ _Por all_ _í_!" added Em, pointing to the door and glowering.

I don't think she'd expected this level of resistance. At a guess, she certainly hadn't expected to be looking at the villain of the piece holding her daughter and their son in his arms as though protecting both of them from her.

There was no mistaking the shocked hurt in her eyes as she gazed at them.

I decided it was time for me to intervene.

"I think you've just been acting under a little misapprehension, Ma'am," I said, deliberately keeping my voice calm and reasonable; it was in no-one's best interest for Hoshi's relationship with her mother to go south, an outcome that would surely poison to some degree whatever happiness she succeeded in finding with Malcolm from here on in. "If you want my advice, I'd just sit down here and talk things over, calmly and politely. I'm sure when you have a better acquaintance with the lieutenant here you may feel you've been a bit unfair towards him."

Something crumbled in her face. If she'd just let herself trust for once, I thought desperately; if she'd only have the sense to admit she might have made a mistake, I guessed even Malcolm would accept she'd gotten carried away. They'd probably never be bosom buddies, but he as much as anyone understands the compulsion to protect your own.

Hoshi had taken half a step forward. "Mother!" she said desolately. "I don't want to choose between you. Don't make me!"

Sherrie moved one pace nearer too. Her expression had softened a little. "I have never been a mother," she said quietly. "But I can still imagine how deeply you wish to save your child from making what seems to you a terrible mistake with her life.

"You love Hoshi. You do not know Malcolm. Naturally you wish to protect her, and think you know best how to do so.

"In this case, however, I beg you to think again. If you persist with this, you will not merely be doing two fine young people a terrible injustice, but depriving not only yourself but also your grandson of a loving relationship that will surely enrich both your lives."

I think Em and I were holding our breath as we watched Mrs Sato. The struggle was etched on her features. It must have been obvious to her that Sherrie St Clair was a respectable woman whose opinion couldn't just be dismissed out of hand, and Malcolm's defense both of Hoshi and of his feelings towards her probably hadn't been anything like what she'd been expecting.

"But your _career…_ " Her tone was despairing. "We had such hopes for you!"

"Ma'am, it's perfectly possible to combine motherhood and a career in Starfleet." Malcolm seemed to have lowered his sword somewhat, and spoke stiffly but civilly. "And I mean to see that Hoshi has every opportunity to pursue any career she wishes to, in Starfleet or out of it, with my utmost help and support."

She blinked at him. She looked exhausted and bereft, drained of the righteous wrath that had carried her here.

Hoshi detached herself from Malcolm's arm and walked forward, still holding baby Charles. "I'm keeping him _, Okaasan_ , and I want to make a life for us. I know I can do it, and I know Malcolm will help me. But I love you. It would mean so much if I had your blessing."

"At least sit down and talk," suggested Ms St Clair softly. "Surely that can do no harm."

For all her previous defensiveness on Hoshi's behalf, Em obviously understood as well as I did that we needed to step back by any means possible from what would be a no-win situation for everybody. She moved aside and plumped the cushions invitingly in the armchair. "Five minutes, _Seňora_ ," she said coaxingly. "And a cup of tea. It commits you to nothing."

Mrs Sato gave a jerky nod, and sat down on the very edge of the seat. Her whole demeanor said we shouldn't mistake the gesture for more than she intended it to be, but two tactical officers, a MACO and an aunt knew the first cautious step had been made towards peace. It only remained for everyone concerned to hammer out the details.

"I shall make us all some fresh tea," announced Sherrie.

"Guess I should make sure nobody minds me leaving the shuttle in the flitter park a while longer," I said.

"And I have to telephone my _madre_ about the tomatoes," added Em.

It was probably just as well that nobody asked 'what about the tomatoes', though I'm sure for one split second everybody was wondering. At any rate, she didn't give any of us time to think about it, but whisked herself out of the door.

She wasn't quite quick enough to outrun me, though. I caught up with her at the end of the corridor. "The _tomatoes_ , Ensign?" I teased her.

"It was all I could come up with on the spur of the moment," she said defensively. She looked absolutely adorable when she was blushing.

It was no use; I had to laugh, a great big belly-laugh that turned heads halfway down the corridor. "I give up. Em, I just have to kiss you."

So I did. And she kissed me back.

I had the feeling of having helped do a damn good day's work, and from here on in things could only get better.


	13. 13: Reed

I don't know how many arms he had to twist to get his own way, but Phlox worked the miracle.

Within a couple of hours I was given the go-ahead to leave, with only the proviso that I was to keep Starfleet posted as to my whereabouts and register with the local GP, who'd be sent my case notes and made responsible for my care. Obviously the inquest into my adventures had only been postponed, but it seemed that _Enterprise_ 's CMO had enough clout to demand it be put back until I was sufficiently recovered to give a decent account of myself.

I was thankful for the couple of hours, though. Gave me time to calm down after the visit from the She-Dragon.

I wasn't sure she was altogether reconciled to my continued existence when she left, but at least she wasn't still looking at me as though she thought any right-minded parent would have drowned me at birth. And for Hoshi's sake I was glad of that, though I was well aware that the episode had tired and upset her, probably on my behalf; she seemed to think I needed a lot of cuddles after her mother finally departed, and of course I wasn't going to object.

Luckily, Charles helped take her mind off things. I distracted her by claiming he was smiling, though the doctors said he was too young yet. But then he had a child prodigy for a mother, so I reckon he started early.

=/\=

I don't think I'd even partially realised how much I'd missed England until I stepped out of the shuttlepod and smelled the air of Aunt Sherrie's garden. It was raining, of course: a steady, misty rain that drifted across the valley, turning the distant woodland into a ghostly grey-green mass in the late evening light. It seemed to have been doing it for quite some time, too, because the earth of the lawn was yielding underfoot and the crazy paving of the patio was patched with large puddles. But for all the wet and the sudden cool of the air after the contained atmosphere of the shuttlepod, it was the air of home, and I drank it in great lungfuls, stretching – somewhat cautiously – as though a physical weight had rolled off my shoulders.

As far as my injuries were concerned, I wasn't completely out of the woods yet. Some of the damage I'd sustained had been severe, and even Phlox didn't have a magic wand among his many and wonderful Sickbay instruments of torture. It would take time for my body to heal properly around the repairs. It wasn't a delay I'd ever enjoyed, usually because it lengthened the amount of time before I could get back on duty again, but this time there was no pressure of duty to speak of. It was agreed on all sides that I would need a long period of recuperation before I could be considered for active duty again, and for once I was determined to make the most of every moment of it. If things worked out as I was desperately hoping they might, it might serve as paternity leave at the same time.

I turned to help Hoshi out of the shuttle. She stared around at the valley – as much as could be seen of it, with the light going – and seemed more apprehensive than pleased. "Trip said it rains a lot here," she commented, with a shadow of a wink in my direction. "Looks like he knew what he was talking about."

"Nonsense! This isn't rain! Just a bit of evening mist!" Aunt Sherrie stepped out of the shuttle and spoke rallyingly.

Charles gurgled, presumably commenting on the feeling of the 'mist' pattering on his face.

"I'm with you there, son," I said, nodding, and pretending not to have noticed Aunt looking hard at me to back her up. "I think it's rain, too."

"Pah! The weaker sex, always were!" With a disparaging sniff she strode towards the patio door, which was unlocked. (I'd given up years ago warning her about security.) At least the lights inside were on a timer, and already glowing softly.

Em and Hayes – I still had trouble thinking of him as 'Matthew' – followed us in. There wasn't room to put them up in the house, and they'd already arranged to stay in the B&B a few kilometres away; I'd sedulously avoided even the appearance of curiosity as to whether they'd be in separate rooms. Aunt Sherrie must have been absolutely exhausted by now, but she'd still insisted they come in and have a cup of tea by way of thanks.

So many memories assailed me as I walked into the lounge, as they always did. Happy memories, down the years. Uncle Edward's treasured car, complete with still-working internal combustion engine, had been donated to a local transport museum, but on the sideboard there was a photograph of him at the wheel, along with a copy of the magazine _Classic Cars_ which had done an article on the vehicle. His old coat still hung on the hook behind the kitchen door, and I could guess that if I looked underneath it I'd still find the well-worn leash of Bramble, their long-dead black labrador.

I'd always wished I could have been here for her when Uncle Edward died after a brief illness, but I was away at the other end of the quadrant at the time, doing things decent men would have turned from in disgust. By the time I was able to get back the worst of the shock had passed off, and she'd buckled down stoically to getting by without him. She thanked me for my offers of help, but said they weren't needed; and the way she looked at me carefully made the back of my neck itch, so that for the first time ever I felt relief when I drove away again – relief that was more for her than for me. It was a feeling that persisted over my subsequent visits. I was living a double life when I returned here, pretending to be a man I no longer felt myself to be. I think I did a reasonable job of it, but it didn't make for comfort that I was deceiving the one member of my family who had forgiven me for my 'defection' to Starfleet.

When I was appointed to _Enterprise_ I knew I'd see far less of her. In the Section I'd returned to Earth fairly regularly between missions, but when I shipped out as the Armoury Officer on Starfleet's flagship I knew we were in it for the long haul. I tried to write when I could, but I always was a poor correspondent at the best of times, and idle chit-chat never came easily to me. The next time I saw her was when we came home after the Xindi attack, and that was a snatched hour from a visit home (about which the less said, the better), but never a word of reproach did she utter. She simply picked up our friendship as though I'd hardly been away a week, which was always a gift she had.

And now she'd done it again. She'd accepted the whole situation as if she flew back and forth in a shuttlepod across the Atlantic every day, rescuing total strangers and family members in one fell swoop and bringing them all back to her house to take up residence there. Less than ten minutes after she'd ushered the last of us into the lounge we were all sitting around drinking tea (served in cups and saucers, 'the last bastion of Civilisation' as she termed them) and eating Rich Tea biscuits while she apologised for having nothing better in the house.

"I assure you, I shall be baking tomorrow," she said with dignity, disregarding our earnest disclaimers. "I refuse to have it said I do not know what is owing to a guest."

Personally, I thought she'd do better to have a damn good lie-in and let her abused system rest. Crossing that many time zones twice in a day was hard on anyone's body, even in a shuttlepod, and she wasn't young. I knew better than to point this out, however; I might be her favourite nephew, but she had a wicked line in put-downs when she felt I needed putting in my place.

We were all pretty knackered, actually. The move from PST to GMT was going to take some adjusting to, and I didn't envy Hayes and Em having to fly back to HQ tomorrow and knock their body clocks out all over again. So we didn't linger over the tea and biscuits, and after my Gamma Shift deputy and her swain had taken themselves off to whatever arrangements they might have made at the B&B, Aunt Sherrie shepherded myself and Hoshi upstairs.

Once again time rolled back. This had always been my room when Mother and Father were away on Navy business and Maddie and I were left with our aunt and uncle – red-letter days in my calendar, that came all too seldom for my liking. Even the bedspread was familiar, a warm tartan throw (somewhat faded now) that had often been pressed into duty as a cave in which I read adventure books by torchlight with a delicious sense of licensed criminality.

Hoshi was to have Maddie's room next door. That too was hardly changed. Even an old rag doll lay on the pillow, its red hair a halo around its head and a complacent grin on its face. I wasn't sure Maddie had ever played with it – Aunt had brought it for her, presumably feeling that it was a proper ornament for a little girl's room – but it was part of the world we had known was waiting for our return.

"Tomorrow we can find something more suitable," said my aunt, pulling the biggest drawer from a chest of drawers, "but for tonight, we can pad this out very safely with blankets, and if Malcolm feels able to push that armchair over to the edge of the bed, we can put it on it so you and little Charles can be together."

While she and Hoshi worked to make the drawer into a makeshift cot, I pushed the armchair over into position. It was broad and sturdy, and its arms would support the 'cot' perfectly. If Charles took it into his little head to perform acrobatics in the night (an unlikely event, since as yet he could do no more than kick his legs and wave his arms about), the only way he would be able to fall was forward into the bed.

Finally everything was ready and we retired downstairs for what was left of the evening. Thanks to the shift in time zones, we were all too tired to do much except talk desultorily, though we found the energy from somewhere to give Charles his evening bath in a washing-up bowl borrowed for the purpose. As soon as he showed signs of wanting to settle down, we all took it for a signal that our day too was over and he was snuggled into his new quarters as we all trooped off to bed. I used the bathroom, bade my aunt goodnight (though still stubbornly upright, she was practically transparent with exhaustion by now) and dropped a chaste kiss on Hoshi's cheek. I dropped another on my son's forehead, told Hoshi to call me if she needed me, and almost staggered back the couple of paces to my own room. If things had been different I'd have been staying with her, but she hadn't invited me and I was ... well, as things stood, I thought it would be less complicated if I just went to my own bed till the situation was clearer. I propped the door open so I'd hear if she called me, and simply peeled off my clothes and let them fall as I reeled towards the bed.

I just had about enough strength left to drag the quilt across me and slap the bedside lamp off. As my eyes adjusted to what had at first seemed like total darkness, I made out the pale square of the window and the cobweb of moon-shadows from the pear tree outside it; presumably the rain-clouds were clearing. A smudge of solidity in the middle of the branches was a growth of mistletoe – Uncle Edward had always hung a bunch of it in the hall at Christmas, much to (or maybe even because of) Father's oft-trumpeted indignation over its being a part of 'ancient pagan superstition'.

After the constant background hum of San Francisco, the quiet here was absolute. In it I heard Hoshi moving around, presumably getting undressed. The bed creaked as she settled into it; I heard her whispering something, probably to Charles, and then the faint glow spilling out from her room into the landing disappeared. The whole house was finally surrendered to the velvet darkness and silence of the English countryside, broken only by the distant, questioning hoot of an owl.

I lay back on the pillows. In the sanatorium sleep had come to me with difficulty at night, though during the day I often fought it off unsuccessfully. The doctors had told me that my body would take what it needed, but I knew that what it needed was rest – real rest – and to realign itself with natural rhythm. There, it was utterly impossible. Here, it finally came to me that I could relax and rest at last.

Only one issue was holding me back.

Phlox had told me that I needed to talk.

He was probably right; for all our history of little disagreements, when it came down to it I respected his judgement more than that of almost anyone I knew. But there's 'talking' and 'talking', and the conviction was growing on me that I needed to unburden myself of a heck of a lot more than just the events of the last few months.

If I was truly to embark on a new chapter of my life – something that had only truly dawned on me when I heard the words 'I love you' on Hoshi's lips – then I needed closure on the previous ones.

I've never really understood the virtue of confession, except as part of a criminal investigation. Now, however, it was beginning to feel as if I needed to do exactly that. In addition to talking of what had happened during my months AWOL from _Enterprise_ , however, I needed to admit what I'd been, and what I'd done, before taking service aboard her. Without the danger that my hearer would feel obligated to pursue the matter through official channels – which I knew, all too well, would result very swiftly indeed in swift and terminal action from those who'd have no intention of their activities becoming public knowledge.

A confession on that scale was something that would ordinarily be done in the privacy of a confessional box in a church. Despite my doubts as to the existence of a God, I'd occasionally thought of paying a second visit to St. Jude's, but I rather doubted whether the Section placed much confidence on the so-called 'seal of the confessional', and my doing so could have had extremely unpleasant consequences for the good priest there who'd been my Good Samaritan all those years ago.

The risk of such a confession to anyone other than a churchman, however, was self-evident. My actions had often been abhorrent to any morally civilised person. To have to spread them all – _all_ – out to view in all their revolting glory before someone not duty-bound to extend divine forgiveness was to invite a rejection that would make Father's disgust in me seem like a ringing endorsement by comparison.

But I desperately needed to make a clean breast of my 'sins' to _somebody_ , and even though I'm not in the least a believer in Providence, my arrival here could hardly have been more fortuitous. Aunt Sherrie was a product of what I'd call 'the Old School'; she believed in right and wrong, and in calling a spade a spade. Moreover, she was an excellent listener. She didn't interrupt, except when she needed clarification. She'd hear me out, and then deliver a carefully considered judgement – and, I thought, understand why I'd had to make her the recipient of my appalling confession, even if it meant she threw me out of her house afterwards and ordered me never to darken the door again.

Maybe I would be selfish in so doing. After all, I knew she'd always felt great affection for me, as I had for her, and the prospect of destroying that was pretty appalling. It would take some nerve on my part to drive a bulldozer through a relationship that had been the one loving constant since my childhood, and I knew how much pain I could bring her by so doing. Still, our relationship had never been founded on either of us taking the easy way; and how horribly easy it would be to keep my mouth shut, accept her friendship and hospitality as my due as her beloved nephew, and leave everything safe and sound – and false.

She didn't respect cowardice. She might not understand why I'd done what I had, she certainly wouldn't approve of it, but honesty was something she always had understood. Honesty – and courage. I'd need both if I was to do what I was contemplating. But as the realisation stole across me that I'd already made my decision, I relaxed on the bed, sighing as I let go of the uncertainty at last.

Tomorrow, as early as could be contrived, I'd get the deed done. After that ... well. That would have to look after itself.

My body was at peace. The pain medication I still had to take daily was blocking out all but a dull ache that in my weariness I had no difficulty at all in ignoring.

The last thing I saw between my closing eyelids was the very edge of the horned moon peeping around the window-frame.


	14. 14: St Clair

There is no excuse for idleness, I have always said.

That said, it _was_ somewhat of an effort to get out of bed the next morning, but the demands of hospitality must never be neglected. My guests should have breakfast in bed.

Unfortunately, one of them had beaten me to it. It was apparent from Malcolm's expression of mingled guilt and exasperation as he looked up to see me enter the kitchen that he'd had exactly the same idea. There was a tray set out ready on the table, with tea, toast and marmalade, and he had even gone out into the garden and broken off a spray of whitethorn blossom to put into a crystal bud jar that normally sat on the kitchen windowsill.

" _You_ are supposed to be resting, young man," I said severely.

"And _you_ , Aunt–" he kissed me lightly– "are not to wear yourself out looking after us. I gather you won't go back upstairs and have this?"

"I think it would be pleasant in the conservatory, don't you?" Through the lounge I saw that the early morning sunshine was pouring through the windows there, glancing rainbows off the hanging crystals Maddie sent me from the various places she travelled to. There was a wicker breakfast table off to one side of it, with a Spanish porcelain figurine in the middle of it, and it had been too long since I ate there.

Nodding, he poured himself a cup of tea and put more bread into the toaster. "Hoshi and half-pint are still asleep," he explained. "I'll give her another hour, then I'll take her up a drink."

I wasn't sure what the time was; since Eddie's death I had very much given up relying on clocks, choosing rather to live by my internal time. I'd found it most invigorating, to tell the truth, and had thought of recommending him to do the same for the duration of his stay. I imagined that serving on a starship involved one in absolute _slavery_ to the clock, and respite from that could _not_ be other than beneficial.

It followed that there were no clocks in the house, but doubtless he was being guided by the chronometer on his wrist. I merely nodded, picked up the tray and carried it into the conservatory. It was the work of a moment to move the figurine out of harm's way, and when the contents of the tray were satisfactorily disposed I pulled out one of the two seats and sat down, taking the opportunity to watch my nephew quietly through the open conservatory door.

He had always been slim, but now he was positively thin. Likewise, his normally pale complexion bore shadows like bruises under his eyes. He looked – yes, as though he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in months. And when he paused, seemingly lost in thought as he waited for the toaster to work, there was a sadness in his face I'd never noticed there before.

It wasn't about his son. I'd seen him the day before as he held Hoshi and Charles, and his expression had been so transformed I'd hardly recognised him. If I could have held that moment forever for him I would have done; but unfortunately, as has been proved so very often, happiness is not made to be held.

I said nothing, however, as he made his own breakfast and brought it in to eat with me. His movements had lost a little of their old grace, and I noticed a tiny wince tug at his mouth as he sat, but although he no longer ate like a wolf in a famine winter he at least finished his toast, however slowly.

Neither of us are compulsive conversationalists. Breakfast was eaten in a comfortable silence, but when it was over he sat restlessly twirling a teaspoon between nimble fingers, staring through the window; and I doubted whether he was staring at the distant spire of St Matthew's, where the waking sun had just begun to touch the weathervane to a point of shining gold.

I folded my napkin and laid it beside my plate. "What do you need from me, Malcolm?"

His gaze came back to me slowly. "I was under the impression you offered me – sanctuary," he said carefully.

"Certainly." I gave him back look for look. "For as long as you need it. But that was not what I asked."

To that, nothing. He stared at the teaspoon as though surprised to find it in his grasp, and laid it soundlessly down on the plate. Then he drained his teacup and walked into the kitchen to pour himself another, which he carried back in and set down untouched. Finally, after another long moment's silence, he looked up at me seriously. "I need you – to listen to me."

I tilted my head, smiling at him. "I was under the impression you always knew you could talk to me. About anything." Not that he had done so often; unfortunately, my fool of a brother had done far too good a job on his only son of drilling it into him that admitting to needing help or advice was a weakness in itself.

Without answering, he put my empty plate on his own and my teacup on both of them, and moved them out of the way. Then he extended his hands on the table, so that I put my own into them. "No, Aunt. This won't be ... won't be like any conversation we've ever had.

"I want you to know everything. Some of it – especially towards the end – well, I can't say for certain it happened. I can only say that I believe that it did, and it's up to you to believe it or not.

"As for the rest – I want one other human being to know what I am. What I've done, what I've been. Then, if you can still stand the thought of me being in your house, I want you to tell me if I'm doing right in trying to make a life with a woman like Hoshi, if I still have the right to believe I could be a good father for Charles. I want you to think of _their_ welfare.

"I think it will hurt you. In some ways, that's the worst part of it. But I've pretended for so long, and now I can't go on any more. If you still have any feeling for me afterwards, at least it'll be for the man I am – not for the one I've pretended to be."

I had often suspected, especially in the early years of his service in Starfleet, that he was not as happy there as he pretended in his letters. This, however, seemed to confirm my darkest fears that there had been far more to his unhappiness than the lingering shame of failing to uphold that stupid 'family tradition' that his father harked on about so much.

I suspected too that the episode with Mrs Sato had upset him more than he had allowed himself to show, even though she had eventually seemed to come to some form of reluctant acceptance of the situation. He was probably already feeling guilty about having made Hoshi pregnant and then 'leaving her in the lurch', however much of an accident that had been; during our flight to San Francisco, Emilia and Matthew had explained how matters had fallen out during the voyage. Now it must be troubling him even more that he was the cause of a potential rupture with her family. By the sound of it, he was seriously wondering whether she had done the right thing after all by choosing him.

My first instinct was to play down the possible gravity of this 'confession' he needed to make, but second and wiser thoughts told me to hold my tongue. He was not given to unnecessary dramatics. And that odd but amiable Denobulan doctor – Phlox? – had said that what his patient needed most was to talk.

It also occurred to me that if the things he wanted to tell me were as grave as his attitude implied, he might be better off speaking to a priest. This, however, would have been said from mixed motives. As well as the thought that he might derive greater comfort from speaking to someone who was trained to deal with troubled souls, I recognised my own reluctance to hear things that would upset me, and knew that I was in danger of failing Malcolm in his hour of need as surely as if I had left him in that convalescent home to die.

And that, of course, was something I could never do, whatever the cost.

I squeezed his hands. "My dear, of course you can talk to me. Tell me whatever you need to."

He disengaged his grip gently. "Not here. I don't want ... Not in the house."

"Then we shall go for a morning constitutional, and leave a note for Hoshi in case she wakes up and wonders where we are.

"And when we come home and you're feeling up to it, we shall go shopping for whatever we need to look after Charles."

I must confess that I was not feeling quite as steady as I should have liked to as I fetched out my duffel coat and warm scarf. I had to stop for a moment and speak sternly if silently to myself in the hallway; I might not be a hidebound old fool like Stuart, but I knew the value of discipline as well as he did – I simply flattered myself that I had a better idea of when and how to apply it, particularly to myself.

Malcolm was waiting just outside the front door. It had been a chilly night. His breath smoked on the morning air, and his hands were thrust into the pockets of his jacket. He looked cold and apprehensive, but resolute.

"You always enjoyed the walk up to the Hunter's Stone," I said, gesturing up the lane towards the place where a side turning would take us up on to the side of the hill. High up there, beside the path, was a stone that was said to date back to pre-Christian times; when the light fell on it from the right angle it was possible to make out shallow zig-zag markings beneath the moss and lichen on one side, but no-one knew what they signified, and the origin even of the name was buried in history.

He nodded silently. I suspected that any direction was alike to him. He wanted only to be moving, running from a past he could not outrun.

For the first ten minutes ago he said nothing. I did not prompt him. He would need to find his own way.

Usually on our walks he strides out easily, reining in his energy to my necessarily slower pace. Now he walked slowly, and now and again he paused, clearly resting to gather the strength to go on. I wondered whether to suggest we should turn back, but he had requested this; he had obviously known what an effort it would be to him, and thought it worth the cost.

Then, just as I was beginning to think he had decided after all that it would be better for both of us if he kept silent, he started to speak.

"It started the night I finished my exams at Uni..."

Later:

"I didn't find out till much later she'd been under orders. By then it was too late – much too late..."

Later:

"There was a graduation party when we finished our course at the Academy. There was a woman: Sain her name was, Arabella Sain..."

Later:

"They said it was special training. Three months..."

Later:

"I came to in a laboratory. In a cage."

Later:

"There was a woman, she'd been through the same thing. She was pregnant. Mine. They couldn't have that. So they aborted it. She died."

Later:

"They attached me to a team. We didn't even know each other's names. Never found out. I was English, so they called me Jaguar. After the car. Soon got shortened to Jag."

Later:

"We were told, no survivors. And there were none. Some of that was my doing."

Later:

"There was one woman in the team, her name was Pard. She and I ... it was how we coped. Some of the time."

Later:

"It got worse. _I_ got worse."

Later:

"They called us the 'lucky' team. Some people didn't though. There were other names. I got to hear most of them."

Later:

"I killed them. At the time I didn't feel anything. You don't, not then. Afterwards, you pay."

Later:

"I wanted – wanted to believe I could escape. That I could change. That they'd _let_ me escape." The words came muffled, through his hands; he was leaning against a wind-warped hawthorn tree, and his fingers were writhing in his hair. "Then Pard died. On a mission. She was right beside me when she was shot. I'd never even told her I was leaving."

Later:

"I'd got my qualifications, got my Lieutenancy. I managed to get past the interview boards. I got the post aboard _Enterprise_. And every day I've worked among men and women who'd spit on me if they knew..."

Later:

"I knew it was wrong. But you can't imagine what it was like out there. We knew the odds were stacked against us, every morning might be the last we'd ever see. And she was so lovely... I'd admired her for so long, and never thought I stood a chance..."

Later:

"We were desperate by that time. We located an abandoned mine, and the captain hoped we might find some clue to the Xindi there. Co-ordinates, anything..."

Later:

"There was this woman, Jessa. The tribe's Healer. I didn't pay her that much attention, at first..."

Later:

"They thought I was an enemy spy. I had to undergo trial by ordeal – submit myself to judgement by their King Horse, Syach."

Later:

"I thought I was going to be there forever. They accepted me – made me one of The People. Gave me this mark I have on here." His hand touched his right shoulder. "It's a Tribe Mark. It means I'm marked for the Wolf: a protector."

 _They were right with that,_ I thought. But I still didn't say anything.

Later:

"I was so much in love with her."

Later:

"The Tribes assembled. They had to, or we stood no chance. Then I ... well, there was a misunderstanding. I had enemies, people who thought I was an enemy of The People. But I managed to come up with a plan."

Later:

"A cannon. Dear God in Heaven, a cannon. Just one of the old type, of course, but I knew what it could do. Grape shot, sling shot ... we'd have been cut to pieces."

Later:

"I survived. I know I survived. But I was badly hurt. I don't remember much."

Later:

"I regained consciousness on the Reptilian ship. And they had Hoshi. I got lucky – we managed to escape, but I failed. They captured us again..."

Later:

"Hayes rescued us. Just as well. I'd just about had it." He swallowed drily. Throughout this dreadful recital he had not found the alleviation of a single tear; it was I who groped in my pocket every so often for a handkerchief and thrust it back again, desperately blinking away my treacherous tears lest seeing them add one iota to his pain. "Hoshi, they'd hurt Hoshi, and she was pregnant, and I couldn't save her, I couldn't help her, I couldn't do anything. She wasn't in Sickbay when I woke up. I thought she was dead. I went mad."

Later:

"I couldn't get my head together. I thought she'd been with someone else, I thought I'd lost her. Then I found out it was mine."

Finally:

"That's what Starfleet want to know. Whether it truly happened or it was a hallucination. If it was true, it doesn't matter very much, but if it's a hallucination – where was I? What was happening to me? Did I spill any classified information? – That's what they're really interested in.

"And I don't know. I never may know, not fully. I only have clues, and my own belief – in here." He pressed a white-knuckled fist into his breastbone. "But is belief enough? Was I captured, interrogated? Did I talk? After everything else I'd done – did I end up a traitor?"

The level morning sunlight lay across the hilltops. He had his head up, absolutely defenceless from its merciless illumination. I thought I'd never seen such despair on a human face.

"So there you have it, Aunt. That's what I've been, that's what I've done. That's what Hoshi wants Charles to have for a father. That's what I have to live with for the rest of my life."

I wasn't young any more, and the day before had been – whether I admitted it to myself or not – extremely tiring. I rested my bottom against the Hunter's Stone, and looked at him.

In that moment I truly wondered whether I had done the right thing in bringing him here. Perhaps it would have been kinder to leave him in the sanatorium, where he would have found a way to put himself out of his suffering. Here, he was hamstrung by his love for me. He would never hurt me by hurting himself.

There must have been so many, many occasions – occasions beyond counting, down the centuries – when one human being would have given their very lives for the power to lessen the pain of another. That morning I joined the ranks of the raging helpless, watching my nephew stand there in the sunlight, broken with self-hatred, grief and guilt. I yearned for the power to help him, and almost as much as for the power to wreak retribution on those who had warped and used him for their own ends, destroying him in the process.

He was officially labelled as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I understood something of that; my grandfather had been caught up in a local uprising in North Africa, one of the last embers of the Eugenics Wars, and though he'd never been willing to disclose the details he never fully recovered from it, remaining a recluse for most of the rest of his life. About a week after Uncle Archie died on the _Clement_ , Grandfather was found dead. Maybe the two were connected in some way, but it was all hushed up – the family were good at that sort of thing. Lack of moral fibre, and all that...

Grandfather's Armageddon came late in his life, after a long and distinguished career. Malcolm's had started young, and been a far more protracted affair. He'd fought his way out of the abyss that could so easily have swallowed him for good, and tried to rebuild his life and his self-esteem, but the wounds were too deep to heal and this latest incident had torn him open. He was bleeding his life-blood away and I was the only one who could even see the full, shocking extent of the wounds.

I was no priest, but I doubted whether any priest could give him absolution that he would find meaningful. I was his only hope. Even I might not be enough.

His anguish over his activities in the service of this 'Section 31' was self-explanatory. His dilemma over the truth of his supposed visit to 'The People' was of a different nature: if it was a delusion, he was left with the horror of not knowing whose prisoner he had been, and what advantage they might have taken of him; if it was fact, then he had been unfaithful to Hoshi, fallen in love with another woman, and was now faced with the prospect of losing not only one of them but both of them, and his new-born son in the process.

The ground beneath us was still glittering with frost. This early in the year, it would be an hour or so before the sun gained enough strength to thaw the rime that rimmed every blade of grass. Nevertheless, I pointed to the ground at my feet, and slowly he folded up and sat there, his back against the Stone. I doubted whether he would have had the strength to stand up again if his life had depended on it.

I put one hand on his shoulder, but didn't speak.

The two of us sat in silence for a while, watching the sun's light steal across the world. The sky above us was almost unbroken blue, limitless and cold. The deepest folds of the valleys were still in shadow, but already there were distant signs of life: a tractor pulled out of a farmyard so distant that it looked like a working toy, and half a dozen mares in the nearby stud farm were released into a field and began cantering around, bucking and neighing with joy. The sound reached us clearly through the thin, cool air. I wondered if the man beside me had ever felt that much happiness in his entire life.

As if hoping to see inspiration up there, I looked up into the sky. Even as I watched, a skylark up there began singing, its astonishing song pouring out over the world.

The shoulder beneath my hand quaked just once.

"Malcolm." I paused, both to steady my voice and gather my thoughts. "I'm glad – glad and honoured – that you felt able to share all your terrible pain with me."

No response, but the world held its breath with his listening.

"I don't pretend to any – any certainty about God. It would be wonderful to have, but I'm afraid I've never had it. And I don't think you have either, so we won't, we..." I abandoned the effort of _we won't go there_ ; I could never have got it said.

"For what it's worth, my dear boy, I read something somewhere once, unfortunately I forget where, something along the lines of 'The evil that we do is only the recoil of the evil that is done against us.' So much evil was done against you, by, by..." I had to swallow and remind myself firmly of the requirements of decorum. "By those who should have known better."

He shook his head, but I felt his hand come ever so lightly to rest against mine.

"But that said," I pursued, "I don't think you have it in you to forgive yourself on that account for the terrible things you did. Some of them were very terrible, my dear, though if I know you at all I think you've already punished yourself for them more than enough.

"None of us can change the past. We can only acknowledge it, and learn from it, and – do everything that can be done to make amends."

"How?" he asked, rustily.

I took hold of his hand before he could take it away again. "Malcolm, you've been given a great chance, and an enormous responsibility. You have a young woman who loves you and a young man who will spend his life looking up to you as his role model. Make amends by being the man you should have been, for them."

He stiffened a little. "Make amends for what I've done by _being happy?_ "

"Family life involves much more than happiness. It involves responsibility, sacrifice, love. All the things you can embrace. It's not easy by any means, nothing worthwhile ever is. But you were never afraid of a challenge." I paused.

"There's one important thing you haven't told me, Malcolm.

"Do you love Hoshi?"

There was another long pause.

"I didn't in the beginning," he said at last. "I liked her, I admired her. I hoped she thought of me as a friend, as well as a senior officer."

"And?" I prompted.

He sighed softly. "When we became lovers, I couldn't help falling for her. I tried to tell myself it was just the same as all the others, but it wasn't. She _mattered_ to me – more than any woman I'd ever met.

"As Jag, I'd learned not to care. Hoshi made me remember, _made_ me care. She was so special. And she – cared – about me.

"When I went to The People, I ... I tried to be faithful. I'd never even thought about fidelity to a woman before. It wasn't till I truly believed I'd never see her again that I slept with Jessa."

His chin sank towards his chest. "I never thought it was possible to love two women."

"Heavens, young man, of course it is," I said briskly. "Love doesn't come with a measuring spoon!

"Now, you'll do your duty as a Reed, as you always do. You'll tell that girl you love her and cherish her, and that you want to help her raise your son. Anything else you may want to say is up to you.

"I know that right now you want to do a great deal, make some kind of grand gesture of reparation to the world. But when you can't make a grand gesture, the best plan is to make a small gesture as well as you can. She risked a great deal for you, Malcolm. She loves you. Don't let this chance go to waste."

"But – the others? All the others? The ones–"

"The ones you must learn to let go," I said gently. "Reed men are fighting men. You fought your war where and how you were ordered to fight it. And that is what fighting men do." I paused. "But you never know. You still belong in Starfleet. You may still reach a position where you can wield enormous influence – influence for justice, for compassion. For all the things you never got the chance to show."

"The Section," he said, very quietly.

"Yes. Even those. You may never be able to undo the evil you were part of, but you can make it your mission to end it."

At that, he turned his head and looked up at me. His ravaged face wore a small, rueful smile. "Dear Aunt. I think you seriously overestimate my powers of influence. I'm just a lowly lieutenant, remember. Starfleet can produce forty of the likes of me at the drop of a hat."

"Forty with your experiences? With your determination? I think not. And you have a career before you. Who knows how much influence you may wield one day?" With that, I leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. "You wanted my advice, Malcolm; you have it. What you do with it is up to you."

We sat on a little longer. He said no more, but he did not let go of my hand.

Then, suddenly, he stood up. He grimaced as he straightened up, and I noticed that he hunched a little over his left side, pressing a hand to the base of his ribs there; undoubtedly it was past time he took his daily dose of painkilling medication. But as he turned to face me again there was the beginning of a weary peace in his face. "Now I have to tell Hoshi."

I had been practically waiting for this. Considering he is a first-rate strategist when it comes to war, he seems to have been an absolute nincompoop when it comes to love. Much as I love him, I was not going to allow him to make a strategic error of a magnitude that might well destroy that fragile seed of hope in the future before it had time to put out a single green shoot.

" _With_ respect, young man, that is exactly what you should _not_ do," I said firmly. "Much as I understand your wish to be honest with her, a confession of what you have told me would achieve nothing but unhappiness. Your past is yours; your future is hers. Devote it to her, and let the dead rest."

"But..."

"Honesty is a laudable trait and the most dangerous of weapons." His obtuseness exasperated me; why was it not obvious to him, who was an expert with every other weapon? "For Heaven's sake. If you insist on being a White Knight _sans peur et sans reproche_ , tell her that you served undercover before serving on _Enterprise_. Tell her that you did things that you regret, but that you have turned your back on that life and want to make a fresh start, with her and with your son. If she asks for details, give her a bowdlerised version. And look on your concealment of the reality as the price you pay willingly for her peace of mind."

High above us the skylark was still singing.

"As for Jessa," I went on, deducing without difficulty that that issue was about to surface, "you did the best you could in an impossible situation. I see no benefit to Hoshi in telling her about it."

He looked incredulous. "You don't think I should tell her that I fell in love with another woman? That I slept with her – that I had a relationship with her?"

"What would it achieve?"

"It would be being honest."

"At _her expense_." Really, I was too old to use a comfortless lump of stone as a leaning-post. I stood up, stifling a groan. "If Jessa existed in this world – if there was a possibility of you encountering her again, if your feelings for her might come to comprise a possible threat to your relationship with Hoshi – then of course it would be your duty to explain the situation. As it is, none of this applies. Hoshi is the future. Charles is the future. However dear the past may be to you, you must let it go.

"With gratitude," I added more gently. "There is no doubt in my mind that Jessa was a most extraordinary young woman. It was only natural that you should love her. But if you speak of her now, to Hoshi, as you have spoken of her to me, you will cause a great deal of unnecessary pain. To both of you."

"So you think I should say nothing about her at all."

I sighed. Really, I should not have to be teaching an experienced tactical officer the basics of his job at my age. "You will naturally discuss what happened to you during your disappearance, Malcolm. It would be dangerous to avoid all mention of the person who was chiefly responsible for your survival. If you want my advice, say that she became a friend; a dear friend, even. Hoshi may guess at more, but if she does, it is her choice to broach it. At least give her the freedom to draw her own conclusions, and act on them as she sees fit."

His gaze was ruefully admiring. "'Flawlessly logical', as T'Pol would say."

"Of course she would. She is a woman."

"And almost as ruthless as a certain aunt of my acquaintance." He shifted. "You do know that that grass was soaking wet from the rain last night."

"And you sitting on it thawed it," I nodded. "Which is the reason only one of us sat down."

His grumbled expression of dissatisfaction with the state of his jeans earned him a censorious look, at which he had the grace to apologise; I have no doubt that he has a wide and extremely disreputable vocabulary, but to do him justice he rarely makes me the beneficiary of the less elevated parts of it. My censure was more aimed at restoring normality between us than actually reproaching him for complaining about having an excessively damp bottom, however. Eddie, after all, would have used far earthier terms, regardless of my disapproval.

"Then perhaps we ought to put our best foot forward for home," I remarked somewhat tartly. "I take it you do have a change of dry clothes."

He smiled, offering his arm. The expression lightened his tired face like dawn after a long, stormy night. "I'm sure I can find something. And if Hoshi's still asleep I'll get straight on with making her breakfast."

I put my hand on his forearm, but pressed it to catch his attention just one more time. "Malcolm, I will give you one more piece of advice.

"Both you and Hoshi are in unequal spirits at this present moment. She has had a great many adjustments to make already. I think that it would be for the best if you said nothing of any of this until both of you have had time to recover, mentally and physically. Let her be in the best state possible to cope with it all. A month, perhaps, will see you both more stable. You will be able to speak with more calmness, and she will be better placed to listen to you with a quiet mind."

I thought he rebelled for a moment – having made the decision to unburden himself, naturally he wished to do so with all despatch – but I was talking sense, however reluctant he might be to acknowledge it. Healing, as Doctor Phlox would doubtless express the matter, is not to be hurried, and their relationship should be allowed time to heal before any new strain was placed upon it.

He nodded, sighing. "You're probably right." Instead of walking on immediately, however, he looked down at me. "Did anyone ever mention you're a gem, Aunt Sherrie?"

I was naturally pleased, but had no intention of showing it. "That is what aunts are for, young man."

Neither he nor I have ever been comfortable with sentimental displays of affection. To change the subject, I tapped him on the wrist. "Your young lady will be thinking we've been kidnapped. We should definitely be making our way home."

"I'll be amazed if she's out of bed yet. She was knackered last night. Still – I hope she does have a good lie in. She deserves it."

Personally I thought it unlikely that she would be still abed, and I was proved right. We had left her a little note so she shouldn't worry, and when we turned slowly into the lane she was just looking out over the gate, baby Charles in her arms. Her face lit up when she saw Malcolm.

"This is your chance," I told him again, in an undertone. "This is the start of the rest of your life. Make something of it you can be proud of."

His head came up, heedless of the utter exhaustion he must surely be feeling by now. He returned her look with the mien of the proud British officer he was born to be.

"I will."

 **The End.**


End file.
